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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28141512">D for Dylan</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avogadro1001/pseuds/Avogadro1001'>Avogadro1001</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abuse, Bisexual Character, Bullying, College, F/M, Gay, High School, Love/Hate, M/M, Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:47:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>26,254</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28141512</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avogadro1001/pseuds/Avogadro1001</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam Henderson is the king of Montgomery High. He’s a student body president and a captain of the football team. His family comes from old money, he’s very handsome and smart. </p><p>Though Liam is a near perfect creature, he made a mistake. He grew up best friends with a nerdy kid named Dylan, who just couldn't fit in with the right crowd once they got into a high school. Liam ditched him and spent the next three years bullying his ex-best friend with his jocks.</p><p>Senior year rolled in and Dylan casually blossomed into a beautiful swan. Liam found himself lost in his eyes. The only problem - after everything Liam did, proud blonde boy wouldn't even look his way.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dylan Moore/Jacob Williams, Dylan Moore/Liam Henderson, Elle Hastings/Peter Moretti, Liam Henderson/Jessica What’s-Her-Last-Name</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter One</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>Chapter One</p><p> </p><p>He wasn't always like this. I'm pretty damn sure I had a right to judge, after all - there was no one who knew him better than I did. Quite frankly, his transformation was too fucking annoying for me to see. The hypocrisy of all these kids in our high school, changing their attitudes about him, inviting him to parties, offering him seats at the cafeteria and acting like he was their best bud this whole time... It was fucking gross to observe. I knew them all too well, I was one of the most prominent figures in their spoiled crowd. I played sports with the jocks, I slept with insta-models and girls from the cheerleading squad. Those minions looked up to me, wanted to be by my side, as if hoping that some of what makes me so interesting to others will rub off on them. Well, everyone except Dylan, of course. These days he didn't give two fucks about my existence.</p><p>Montgomery High was a toxic place. It didn't take long for me to figure out. On the surface it was a pretty-looking high school with nice facilities, fat budget, decent security and good location, with sweet tuition money pouring in from pockets of rich suburban daddies. On the inside, however, the place was rotten. It was a mix of wanna-be beauty-gurus cyber bullying different girls on a rotating schedule, aspiring pseudo-politicians, fucked-up crackheads, bulimic drama-queens and climate change freaks that did more harm than good with their annoying campaigns around the school. Musicians, artists and nerds were hanging together and radiated faintly non-toxic vibe, but their shitty LGBTQ comrades were a different story - that venomous crowd was preying on their own group like an autoimmune disease, bullying poor queers more than anyone else did. I hated those fuckers, mostly because of what they failed to do for Dylan when he needed them most.</p><p>Shortly after crossing doors of Montgomery High, Dylan and I drifted apart. Looking back, I see that it was all my fault. Others may say it was unavoidable, we were way too different and things that glued our friendship over the course of our lives were losing traction. Our mothers were very close growing up, their friendship was legendary - they managed to stay in touch after getting married and living in separate parts of the country, but they reunited after Dylan's dad landed a job at one of the law practices here in Boston. I was almost a 2 year-old toddler when Dylan was born. Naturally, we spent our childhood growing up together. We attended same kindergarten and elementary school, spent every holiday and birthday together, were practically inseparable. I was older than him, but he was much smarter. Even though he started elementary a year earlier, I was still one school year ahead of him initially. Destiny had its own plans for me though - I got a bad case of meningitis when I was 9, spent a long time in the hospital, had to be under isolation for weeks and was very debilitated after infection dwindled. I could still speak and swallow, but I could barely move my arms and had to learn how to walk again. Dylan helped me study, he visited me every day, sleeping over and spending countless hours at my house to keep me company. By then he already knew middle school algebra and geometry, so doing third grade math and English was a piece of cake for a little second-grade genius. I took physical therapy extremely seriously, a few months later I could run again, but I didn't stop there. Three things were set in stone as a result of my childhood crisis - I fell in love with sports for the rest of my life, I accepted my average-ass IQ and I knew that I will always hold on to Dylan no matter what. Unfortunately Dyl's academic efforts didn't yield much - I did learn a lot with his help, but due to poor attendance I ended up skipping a year of school nonetheless. On the bright side - me and my best friend ended up in the same class.</p><p>Fast forward to the senior year of high school and our friendship has crumbled apart. I was 19, I played football and grew up to 6'5". Dylan was 17. Hopeless nerd, laying on the grass under the oak tree and reading books on his iPad. He wore those ugly thick glasses that covered half of his face and made his big blue eyes look like two pimples. Puberty stood him up - he was thin as a straw, at only 5'2" he barely reached the top shelf of the cabinet where he kept biochem books he started reading for premed. He had anaphylactic shock upon contact with any kind of sports. I mean, can you really blame me for keeping my distance? I remember the day when Trish made her first sharp comment about the way he dressed. I was a freshman and started dating her right off the bat - Trish was a bitch, but she was gorgeous, lots of guys wanted to hook up with her and my competitive nature did not let me yield to anyone. I remember hearing their jokes about him and I was laughing along, making fun of the only real friend I had. I remember the looks they gave him and the way he looked back. I also remember the way he looked at me...</p><p>They drew a fat red target circle on his back right at the beginning of freshman year. I tried talking to him, tried to help him fit in, but he wasn't feeling it. He never cared about what other people said or thought. Ever since he was a little kid, he was the calmest person in the room. Dylan acted older than his age, company of superficial high school kids was boring to him and he paid zero attention to those whom others followed on social media or in real life. The latter proved to be a problem with the popular crowd. They could tolerate bookworms and gays - even brain-dead jocks from my team knew how well they did in life, these days being smart was almost enough for you to make it to the top of the food chain, and frank homophobia was frowned upon almost across the board. What they couldn't tolerate was the lack of his attention. Dylan gave them nothing, he didn't laugh at their jokes, at best he found them annoying. It wasn't because he was thinking less of them, or somehow considered himself above their shit - really he just didn't care about them. At all. He wouldn't give them a single ounce of his attention. I now realized that he was right this whole time. They just weren't worth it.</p><p>He told me he was gay back in the middle school, shortly after turning 13. He blurted it out, in a matter-of-fact kind of way, after I made a comment about a girl with a pretty ass that we saw earlier in line to Starbucks. I remember chocking on my coffee. I wasn't shocked - opposite to that, I suspected that he liked boys. I choked because of the way he said it. I don't think he was worried that I won't accept him either. He knew me, knew I was better than that, his orientation wasn't going to change anything between us. Still, I remember that slight concern in his eyes mellowing away as soon as I told him it was cool and gave him a hug.</p><p>I wish it was just as easy for him with the others. His relationship with dad took a hit after he came out. Dylan didn't tell me much, but I remember seeing him cry on a few occasions. He always tried to hide his tears from me. He was collected and calm, in this world of short attention span, 3-second instagram loops and emotional prostitution he kept his thoughts and feelings to himself. Some people didn't like it about him, I guess he could seem emotionless and cold, even robotic, but in reality he was far from it. He hated being vulnerable and it was nobody else's business what went on in that mysterious mind of his. The day my mom told me his parents were fighting, I went to check up on him and found him bruised up and badly beaten. He didn't want to tell me what happened, but it wasn't necessary. Dylan's mom took action and divorced his father, suing the bastard for domestic violence, getting the house and full custody over both Dylan and little Sarah. I can only guess how humiliating losing custody battle was for a lawyer. He put up a big fight, but Mrs. Moore had my mother by her side, and there was no force capable of beating their combo. He ended up leaving town and as a result Dylan was devastated. He didn't show it, but he lost a lot of weight and kept unusually quiet for months before opening up again. I was there for him when he needed me and out of the picture on the days when he needed space.</p><p>"Damn... Is that really Dylan over there?" - I heard Jessica whispering into my ear, knocking my train of thought off the rails.</p><p>She clenched my arm tighter and pointed her freshly manicured finger towards the opposite end of the cafeteria, where Dylan was chatting with Elle and Peter at the table and eating his favorite chocolate pudding. Jess and Mark went on to discuss how many surgeries he probably had, talking nonsensical shit about him as usual. I was having headache listening to their conversation. Zoning out on the white noise they blabbered out with their mouths, I carefully examined my ex best friend. He was dressed casually but with style, wearing gray jacket with a white tee underneath, sporting a pair of blue Levi's and a brand new pair of sneakers. Gone were his brown baggy pants and ugly oversized sweatshirts. Short blonde hair were casually falling on his forehead, reflecting sunlight off the roof window, making his head sparkle with gold. He took off his braces and was now actually smiling - something I haven't seen him do for the longest time. I almost forgot how contagious his smile was. Even his old granny glasses were now gone. People could actually see the jam he was hiding for so long - his deep blue eyes, with those ultramarine specks scattered across the iris, capable of piercing you through soul on that rare occasion when he takes them off the book and graces you with his gaze.</p><p>I was wondering what made him change his mind about contact lenses. Or maybe, he had LASIK done? A few years ago he was terrified to try either, but apparently he wasn't anymore. I wondered what caused such a change in him. I knew it wasn't an insecurity or a desire to become popular - Dylan was above this shit, and just to make things clear again - he never gave a fuck about what other people thought.</p><p>Dyl's iPhone rang and he jumped in place, startled by the vibration. I chuckled, seeing that some things about him remained unchanged. When his eyes slid down the screen, a warm smile broke slowly on his face. He looked adorable when he smiled. I was curious about what he saw on his phone. Was it a text from his mom? From another friend? Was it something funny that made him smile, or something personal?</p><p>He was hardly paying any attention to people that weren't important to him. I was sad to declare that I was now one of those people. Lately he wasn't even turning my way, wouldn't give me a single look. I felt a sting of guilt. Did I expect him treating me differently after everything I've done? I don't think so. Why would he? I made sure, a long time ago, that he wouldn't even look my way...</p><p>"I can't believe you used to be friends with this fag..." Jess spat, leaning closer against my seat at the table.</p><p>I shrugged in disgust. She knew I fucking hated that word. She wrapped her arms around me and pressed her lips against the angle of my neck. I felt her warm breath on my skin. Jess could be a real bitch, but that was exactly how I liked them. I was in it for fun and sex, and they knew what they were signing up for.</p><p>"Don't remind me." I said, brushing off the topic.</p><p>I grabbed the back of her neck, pulled her in and kissed her, noting a subtle fruity taste to her soft lips.</p><p>I spent too much time thinking about him lately. Dylan Moore was stuck in my head like a bad tune from tasteless commercial. Whether or not it was a nostalgia, a sense of guilt over ruining our friendship or his sudden Ugly Betty transformation throwing sand in my eyes, something kept my mind focused on his face. I wish I knew what happened in his life. I wish I was still allowed to know. I guess spending a good portion of the past three years actively making his life miserable didn't help me with that. He probably thought otherwise, but I wasn't trying to hurt him. It was never my intention. His pain was simply a collateral damage - I needed to get where I was and he was standing on my way.</p><p>All of that didn't matter now. We were heading out to the college soon, his hard work paid off and rumors had it - he got his acceptance letter from Harvard this past week. At least I felt pride in knowing that my childhood meningitis played pivotal role in his decision to become a doctor. I left my mark. No matter how hard he tried, he wouldn't be able to take that away from me.</p><p>Next several days felt painfully protracted. Time was passing slowly, my thoughts were circling back and forth, constantly drifting to Dylan. I couldn't help it. I had hard time concentrating on anything, blowing football practice to a point where coach had to roast my ass to keep me going. I felt numb, as if someone snuck inside and killed my ability to feel joy or... literally anything else. I made out with Jess behind the bleachers, she gave me her signature handjob, which felt nice for a moment, but was ultimately meaningless. Last time I felt this way, I was hungover after Jason's party, but I haven't been drinking lately.</p><p>Dylan’s eyes were haunting me. I couldn't figure out what it was, I must have missed having him around. This wasn't the first time I dealt with bitter taste of regret - after spending years surrounded by a bunch of fucking twats and hypocrites I longed to catch up with Dylan, to find out how he was doing, to hear him call me out on my flaws, to knock some sense back into me - something that others were too afraid to do now. What he and I had, our friendship, it was tangible and real. People I traded him for were shallow and fake. That's what I was left with.</p><p>"Liam, what's botherin' ya man?" Mark snuck up on me from behind and took a seat beside me on the bench.</p><p>I sat there sometimes after practice, before heading out to the parking lot. Somehow, looking at an empty stadium helped sort things out in my head. Today, unfortunately, I was going to leave this bench with more questions than answers.</p><p>"Dude, what's goin' on?"</p><p>"I don't know." I replied quietly.</p><p>I wasn't lying. I really had no fucking clue.</p><p>"Bro, if this is 'bout the game," he went, "you have nothin' to worry 'bout. You'll get your scholarship, those colleges are out there to get ya man!"</p><p>Weirdly enough, I wasn't worried about it. Hearing Mark raise this topic was sobering though. I had to show my best game on the field, too much was at stake and there was no more cutting slack.</p><p>"I don't care about the game, Mark."</p><p>He squinted at me with a stupid look on his face. "What is it then? Is it about Jess?"</p><p>"No. Dude, I'm not in the mood. Just drop it."</p><p>I stood up and wiped the back of my jeans from the dust. We grabbed our duffel bags and headed towards the parking lot. It was almost 5 o'clock, most of the kids were out by now and there weren't many cars left. I got to my Chevy Camaro and was about to get in, when I noticed him, standing a few feet away.</p><p>Dylan.</p><p>Hands in his pockets, rucksack casually strapped onto his back, he looked like he was practicing tandem gait along the parking lines on the pavement, throwing his hands out every few seconds to keep his balance. He stayed late again... probably was studying in library.</p><p>I felt my heart racing. There weren't many people out, it was unusual to see him alone, Peter and Elle always hung around to give him a ride home. He didn't have a car - after divorce his mom had a hard time making ends meet. School tuition was expensive enough and Dylan was working part time in the ice cream shop a few blocks away to help pay the bills. Having a car was a luxury he couldn't afford.</p><p>He put on a pair of headphones and played a song I could tell he really enjoyed. He was smiling, making awkward dance moves with his tiny shoulders and arms, humming along something unintelligible. He even span on his feet a few times. I don't think I ever saw him like this, he looked very happy.</p><p>To be frank, I felt happy too, just watching him. His slender fingers snapping in rhythm to the song I was now dying to hear... It was so fucking weird. I struggled to squeeze a single emotion out of myself all day, and here I was, getting short of breath from simply looking at him. I wanted to approach him, to say how sorry I was for all the shit I've done to him. I also wanted to give him a ride home.</p><p>I didn't know what was stopping me. At that very moment, I realized that nothing was. I didn't care about what those twats thought anymore - I was at the fucking top of the food chain, nobody dared to go against what I wanted. And it was a high time for me to admit that there was nothing I wanted more than to give Dylan a ride home.</p><p>I'm pretty sure I looked like a creep coming up to him out of the blue, with that dorky smile plastered across my face. My excitement didn't last long, however. After making a few short steps towards him, I was rudely stopped by a black Mercedes pulling into the parking lot with a whistle. The fucker parked right in between me and Dylan, making my blood boil in an instance.</p><p>'Who the fuck does he think he is?' I thought to myself, mentally noting that I didn't recognize the car - the model was too expensive even for the kids from our school.</p><p>Whoever was inside the car had just killed the engine, opened the door and stepped out. Expecting to see an obnoxious fat white dude, I was surprised by seeing a tall black guy, wearing a gray leather jacket and a pair of sunglasses. He looked older than a typical high school kid. A bumper sticker with Harvard University blazon confirmed my suspicions - he was probably a college student. Well-built and well-dressed, he looked like a fucking model, which made his presence here even weirder.</p><p>Dylan saw this guy and froze in place for a few moments. He looked scared, like a deer caught in headlights. He took his headphones off and cautiously dashed back without breaking intense eye contact with that dude. The guy looked at Dylan like a predator at his prey. He headed assertively towards the boy, killing distance between them so fast that I didn't even get a chance to react.</p><p>"Hey!" I shouted threateningly.</p><p>Despite me standing only a few feet away, neither that guy nor Dylan payed any attention to me. The guy reached out and put his hand on Dylan's cheek. Assuming the worst, I jumped forward to knock him on the ground, but I ended up freezing in place.</p><p>Suddenly, solid ground turned into a quicksand underneath my feet. My heart sank as I saw the guy pulling Dylan in by the waist and wrapping his hand around boy's neck. He covered Dylan's full soft lips with his own and slipped his tongue inside his mouth. He kissed him like he fucking meant it, lips sliding on Dylan's cheeks, biting and pulling on his lip, diving in deep and hard. Dylan reciprocated, letting out soft moans, wrapping his arms around the guy's back, fingers digging into his jacket.</p><p>I felt like somebody just stabbed me in the gut and knocked my breath out.</p><p><em>'What's happening? Who the fuck is that guy... Why is he kissing Dylan, why is Dylan letting him?!' </em>I heard myself thinking.</p><p>I never felt this way before. I was confused and hurt, I hyperventilated, unable to decipher my own reaction to this.</p><p><em>'What the fuck is he thinking?! Is that guy his fucking boyfriend or something? How the fuck did this happen, how could he fucking do this to me!'</em> I screamed in my head, getting angrier with each passing second.</p><p>"What the fuck..." I hissed out loud, chocking in my fury, unable to keep it to myself.</p><p>While my heart threatened to burst out of my chest, Dylan and the guy in gray leather jacket broke their kiss and turned my way. For the first time in months, Dylan looked me in the eyes.</p><p>I was a fool to think I was ready to look into his...</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dylan Moore:<br/><br/></p><p>
  
</p><p></p><div class="ipsClear ipsType_normal ipsSpacer_bottom ipsType_richText ipsType_break chapterIndent">
  <p>“What do you mean?” he asked. I could feel hot tension morphing into a thick wall between us. On the other side of that wall, my father looked at me with pure disgust in his eyes.</p>
  <p>“I...” my voice was breaking, throat got clogged with a lump made of bare nerves, preventing me from speaking up. “You heard me, dad. I’m gay.”</p>
  <p>He clenched his mandible and looked away. It seemed as though he couldn’t take a breath for a few moments. His face turned darker shade of red, a tortuous vein bulged out on his temple, spreading across the scalp towards forehead. I could swear I sensed the heat radiating off his face.</p>
  <p>“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me...” dad hissed through gritted teeth, after taking a sharp breath.</p>
  <p>As a 13 year old kid, this is the last thing you want to hear from your parent after coming out. Dad had a pretty rigid set of expectations from me and I always did my best to meet them. No matter how unrealistic and downright ridiculous his milestones were, I consistently reached above and beyond them, knowing that one day I wouldn’t be able to meet the most important one. Dreading that day came as a given, but to say I expected a different outcome would be a lie. Knowing what will happen didn’t ease my pain, though. I tried to stay calm, but those burning hot tears rolled treacherously on my eyes, squeezing the lump in my throat.</p>
  <p>Mom knew for a while, of course. When I told her, she played a silly card pretending she had no clue. My words made her so happy, I think she’d have disowned me if I told her I was straight instead. Her reaction made it ten times easier to tell Liam next. With my father it was a little different.</p>
  <p>He grew up on a farm in Colorado, was raised in ultra-conservative family. His parents were red-blooded white supremacists and I suspected that my grandma Gloria was secretly roasting little babies in her oven every Sunday. She was a genuine southern lady, a proud republican and a devout Christian. I remember her in front of the tv, mouthing along shitty documentaries, mumbling how she’d burn all the fags at the stake, if only she could. She and grandpa Frank have severed ties with dad after he married liberal city-girl from Illinois, but mellowed out after I was born. Intricacies of my father’s upbringing were always fascinating to me. By his twenties that unbendable set of values was already woven deeply into his cortex. Mom ironed out some of the rough edges, but the damage was already done - courtesy to my beloved grandparents.</p>
  <p>“It’s that fucking Henderson boy, isn’t it?” he asked. His knuckles turned white from how tightly he squeezed his fists.</p>
  <p>I didn’t expect this question. Not from dad. From mom, perceptive and shrewd, who always knew a little more than she showed, maybe. But not from him. He couldn’t possibly...</p>
  <p>“Tell me the truth, you little shit!”</p>
  <p>“Dad he’s not...” I was going to state the obvious - Liam wasn’t gay. He cut me off, however.</p>
  <p>“Of course he’s not!” dad spat in contempt, adding, “That’s wasn’t a fucking question, was it?”</p>
  <p>I felt cornered. The walls of our dining room suddenly got bigger, closing in on me, making me feel small and helpless.</p>
  <p>“He has something to do with it, doesn’t he?” dad hissed, forcing pressurized droplets of spit to disperse around his mouth, “Fucking answer me!”</p>
  <p>I jumped in place, startled. I’ve never seen him this angry. Shrouded, I broke down in tears, unable to hold them.</p>
  <p>“Yes...” I cried, “He does...”</p>
  <p>I wasn’t going to lie to him. He deserved to know the truth, I promised myself that there won’t be any more lies starting today. If this too had to come out, I won’t hide it anymore.</p>
  <p>Dad slapped me across the face and sent me flying down on the floor, where I hit and bruised my arm. The rest of the evening was a blur. I confessed everything, I cried and begged him to forgive me, to accept me. He didn’t. I remember that metallic taste of blood in my mouth, the overwhelming dread fettering me in chains as he beat me like a rag doll, senselessly and violently. He cried and screamed, he spat at my face, forcing me to crawl in the corner like a horrified animal.</p>
  <p>For the next couple of weeks I felt nothing. I was floating around my body, detached, looking at myself from distance, severed from all perceptions of joy or sadness. Bruises changed their color a few times and have soon faded away, but it didn’t make me feel any better. Mom sent me to therapy. All I could think of was how I let everybody down. How it was all my fault - my mother and father separated because of me, I singlehandedly destroyed the lives of my parents and my little sister. Thanks to me, my poor father was now all alone, living in a hotel out of state, paying alimonies and trying to make ends meet.</p>
  <p>The only person that kept my heart beating was the same person that inadvertently provoked my turmoil.</p>
  <p>Liam Henderson.</p>
  <p>I think I fell in love with him before I even understood the concept of love. For as long as I could remember, no other human being could push my buttons the way Liam did. He effortlessly stopped my breath with his signature half-smirk, piercing me with those gorgeous green eyes, framed by thick, dark eyebrows. His soft olive skin was always covered in a thin layer of sweat, making it glow in the light. Straight nose and full lips morphed seamlessly into a strong square jawline. His perfect smile drove me insane every time he flashed those big white teeth, with fangs protruding just enough to make it irresistibly sexy.</p>
  <p>Shortly after hitting puberty, he turned into one of those drop-dead gorgeous guys people got instantly attracted to on the streets. He grew very tall and muscled, he was ideally proportioned, had just the right amount of body hair. I always got dizzy from the smell of his cologne mixed in with his natural body scent. Every single time Liam took his shirt off in front of me I was loosing my mind, blushing like a stupid kid, stealing glances at his sweaty abs and strong chest.</p>
  <p>It wasn’t all about the looks, of course. It was his character that captured my heart. He was the bravest guy I knew, he’d always be the one to grab the spider with his bare hands while I’m standing there petrified. He was the first to jump through any obstacle, encouraging me to explore the world and open up to it the way he did. He protected me from bullies, he was loving and caring, visiting me when I was down with a flu, bringing me his mom’s signature cookies and spending nights at my place watching horror movies and making sure to catch that flu from me. He singlehandedly pulled me out of the dark hole I found myself in, after dad left us.</p>
  <p>Was he aware of how I felt? Not really. He was always clueless to it. Perhaps, it was because I fell for him before it became mainstream? Or maybe, I was too good at hiding my feelings? In any case, Liam was oblivious and I was glad about that. My biggest issue with falling for my best friend was the guilt - it was eating me out alive. It wasn’t because loving him meant I was gay - I was always comfortable in my skin. It was the shame of loving him, in particular. We grew up together, were raised like brothers and I felt dirty, as if my love was forbidden simply based on that fact. I feared that he will find out and hate me for it. This fear played a major role in my development as I grew up. Somehow, nondescript clothes became very comforting, glasses shielded me from being seen, and I felt safe knowing that no one in their right mind will ever think of Liam being involved with someone who looked like me. On many levels this defensive behavior meant a self-imposed exile from my peers, which with time, however, I learned to appreciate. Being an outcast helped me unmask false friends and filter through those who were too shallow to see past my looks. There was much more depth in books - I loved loosing myself in them, reading one after the other, from Salinger to Dostoyevsky, living through their characters and learning more about people than real life could ever teach me.</p>
  <p>Looking back, I see how narrow-minded and arrogant this worldview was on my part. I had that perfect person by my side and I didn’t really feel like I needed anyone else. Friendship with Liam completed me, I never strived to have a wider social circle. Having him around was more than enough, and stepping into a freshman year of Montgomery High, I was convinced that Liam didn’t need anyone else either.</p>
  <p>Ouch.</p>
  <p>One might think that a pair of naive 9th-graders starting high school would walk around the brand new campus anxious and lost, but it wasn’t the case for Liam. He had just turned 16 back then, he grew up over the summer, got even more handsome and a high school crowd noticed him right away. Before the week’s end he was accepted to the football team and had a stray of girls following him around to practice and bombarding him with messages on Instagram. He loved the attention, we often spoke about the girls he liked, and I was genuinely happy for him and his newfound popularity.</p>
  <p>One of the last good memories I had about freshman year before the life pulled a complete 180 on me, was the day Mr. Henderson took us to Chevy dealership. Liam picked his first car, a black Camaro. I’ve never seen him happier, he dreamt of this day for years. We spent all weekend being nasty teenagers, driving around the city, cutting through Downtown blocks and touring Harvard premises, with loud music blasting off the speakers, annoying the hell out of pedestrians.</p>
  <p>I can’t really say that things have changed suddenly, because they didn’t. I was just too blind and too stupid to see and admit that he was changing. If I’d have to pinpoint the exact day when our friendship cracked, it would be the day when Trish Collins asked Liam to sit with her and her friends at their table in cafeteria. He liked her. As cliché as it sounds, she was the hottest and most popular girl in the school. God, this phrase was so beaten, but it was true. She started junior year and was 16 years old, just like Liam. To put an icing on the cake of chiché, she was a captain of the cheerleading squad.</p>
  <p>Trish was one of those naturally beautiful white girls that didn’t require any makeup to look stunning. Blonde hair, blue eyes, puffy lips, perfect skin and an adorable baby face. A complete mismatch of personality and appearances. They began dating almost right away. It was a match made in heaven, really. Liam got pulled into their circle and soon I was finding myself alone at recesses and cafeteria breaks.</p>
  <p>Climbing the social ladder came with its own challenges and Liam got himself into several fistfights. Every time I saw another dumb jock trying to jump him, I felt bad, knowing who exactly will end up covered in blood on the ground. Liam never lost. He wasn’t violent, but he instinctively knew how to fight. I was convinced that it was something genetic - his cat-like reflexes and reaction time were lightning fast, he was extremely accurate and collected, moving like a cheetah, beating the shit out of everyone who was stupid enough to fight him. Needless to say, in this primitive teenage crowd this quickly got him all the respect he needed.</p>
  <p>Quite frankly, upon first look Montgomery High resembled a school from a stereotypical 80-s movie. There was a strict segregation into social groups, people seemed to clump together based on their interests, popularity and perceived status. I found it amusing, but also very stupid. Following that logic, where would I belong? I was best in my class on math, chemistry and biology and it would seem I’d belong with nerds, but I also loved to read history books and fiction, did that mean I was supposed to hang around with the book club? My best friend was surrounded by popular kids, wasn’t it making me “popular” by association? Oh, and last time I checked I was openly queer, so how about the rainbow crowd?</p>
  <p>Trying to join any of those flocks didn’t feel right and didn’t make much sense to me. I didn’t want to reduce myself to a single distinguishing feature to submit to social standards of Montgomery High. My mom used to tell me that I wasn’t a drop in the ocean, I was an entire ocean in a single drop. If other people couldn’t see me for what I was without me putting a shiny label on my forehead, then it wasn’t my problem.</p>
  <p>Over the first couple of months, Liam tried to help me fit into his new circle. He got me acquainted with Trish, Mark and Sebastian. At first they acted pretty nice to me, but then the whispers began. Less than a week later I heard them making fun of my clothes and my glasses. At first, they made sure Liam wasn’t around to hear their gossip, but this too has changed over time.</p>
  <p>“Look Dyl, I think you’re overreacting a bit, okay? It was just a joke!” Liam told me dismissively one afternoon when I confronted him about it.</p>
  <p>“It wasn’t funny. I don’t think it was meant as a joke, Liam.”</p>
  <p>“So what? They do have a point, you know. You need to get rid of those,” he said with a neglectful chuckle, tugging on the heavy frame of my glasses.</p>
  <p>“Since when does it bother you?”</p>
  <p>“It always bothered me, they make you look fucking hideous.”</p>
  <p>He didn’t get a chance to finish his thought, Trish called him and he abandoned our conversation without even realizing how much he hurt me. I couldn’t care less about what his new friends thought of me, but his opinion was paramount to me. He said I was hideous. Hearing this from the most important person in my life wasn’t exactly easy on my ears, but it was nothing compared to what was coming.</p>
  <p>He stopped answering my calls, began ignoring me in the school and acted as if we never knew each other. He spent more and more time with Mark and Seb, whereas outside of school he was mostly hanging out with Trish. He got very passionate about football and became more aggressive towards those who annoyed him. He changed to a point where I couldn’t recognize him anymore. I was leaving him voicemails and texts, asking to meet and talk, but he was keeping me in the dark.</p>
  <p>I met him in the hallway by the lockers one day. Fishing him out of his crowd was probably rude on my part, but in my defense - Liam didn’t really leave me much choice.</p>
  <p>“Can we talk, please?” I asked, holding onto his arm and pulling him towards my locker.</p>
  <p>Liam visibly shivered and looked down at me in irritation. He appeared uncomfortable, constantly glancing at Trish and the rest of his ‘friends’, as if he was embarrassed being seen with me.</p>
  <p>“What do you want?” he barked.</p>
  <p>“Can you tell me what’s wrong? You’re not picking up my calls, I can’t get a hold of you. Are you alright?” I asked. “I spoke to Emma yesterday, she’s worried about-”</p>
  <p>“You spoke to my mother?” he cut in, his eyes darkening.</p>
  <p>“She called me, Liam.”</p>
  <p>Hearing this had vexed him, he pursed his lips and looked away.</p>
  <p>“Liam, quit talking to this fag!” I suddenly heard from behind his back.</p>
  <p>Initially, I was convinced I just hallucinated there for a second, but no. It was Trish. She actually said it. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. It wasn’t the first time I heard this slur spat at me, but I couldn’t remember the last time, because Liam always made sure whoever said that, won’t ever talks to me this way again.</p>
  <p>She walked up to us and looked at me demeaningly.</p>
  <p>“Come on, you have to tell him,” she yawned leisurely, clinging onto Liam’s arm. “This is getting ridiculous, I swear...”</p>
  <p>“Did you hear what she said?” I asked him, but he pretended not to hear me, distracted by his girlfriend leaning in for a kiss.</p>
  <p>“Liam?” I called out loudly, forcing them to separate.</p>
  <p>He looked back at me, his eyes were cold, his face radiated disdain. I felt chills running down my spine. Cool sweat beaded on my temples as my heart started racing. That terrible nervous ball clumped in my throat once again, forcing me to recall my last conversation with dad. This time was worse though. Whoever was standing in front of me wasn’t the Liam I used to know.</p>
  <p>“Baby, you have to tell him.” Trish whispered in his ear.</p>
  <p>“Tell me what?” I asked, clenching my teeth in distress.</p>
  <p>Large tears rolled on my eyes blurring my vision, but I did everything to keep them still. A few sharp breaths later, tension between us reached it’s peak.</p>
  <p>“You just wouldn’t get a hint, would you?” Liam exhaled.</p>
  <p>“What hint?” I dared.</p>
  <p>“Geez, you’re really fucking dumb, aren’t you?” Trish spat at me.</p>
  <p>“I’m sorry, who are you again?” I asked her.</p>
  <p>It turned out that mocking genuine and blatant disregard to her narcissistic persona was the single most triggering reply I could come up with. She gasped in shock as if I had just slapped her.</p>
  <p>“He insulted me,” she told Liam, “Do something.”</p>
  <p>Liam looked like he was about to actually hit me. I couldn’t believe it. There was no way he would hurt me, right? I couldn’t even begin to describe my emotions. I was scared, heartbroken and furious.</p>
  <p>“Are you going to hit me?” I asked, staring in his eyes. “Really?”</p>
  <p>“Don’t fucking tempt me,” Liam replied. “Faggot.”</p>
  <p>My heart sank to my stomach. Tears fell off the eyelids and burned my cheeks.</p>
  <p>“Let me make it easy for you,” I heard myself saying, turning towards Trish, “I think your girlfriend is a fucking bitch.”</p>
  <p>He grabbed me by the collar and started beating me in the face with his fists. He hit me harder than my dad did, forcing me to thrash against the cabinet doors and cut my head against its metal ridges. He shoved me into the lockers, delivering powerful blows to my jaw, my nose, my cheekbones, forcing blood to gush out of my nostrils and smear his fists. He punched me in my chest and abdomen, hit my ribs and kicked my legs. I don’t remember feeling much pain in the moment, I was too shocked, too convinced that I’d wake up and it’ll turn out to be a nightmare. Everything happened so fast, I barely registered it. At some point he knocked me out unconscious and I woke up in an ambulance. Drive to the hospital was spotty in my memory, I briefly recalled seeing ED doc, being inside the CT machine, having a bunch of surgery residents jamming every part of my body with the ultrasound probe, putting stitches on my scalp.</p>
  <p>I didn’t really talk much after that. Partly because my throat hurt too much, but also because I didn’t want to. I spent the rest of the week at home. When mom asked me if I wanted to press charges against him, I asked her not to. I was still underage and it was ultimately her decision, but she was in a tough position. He was a son of her best friend, the most important and dear person left in her life. Emma was visiting me every day, apologizing for what Liam did, unable to hold tears seeing the cast on my arm, looking at the bruises on my face. Mom ended up listening to me and didn’t file any complains against him, but I knew she wasn’t happy with this decision. It ended up damaging her relationship with Emma and I couldn’t help but blame myself for it. She ignored her calls and avoided her, distancing us from Henderson family in an attempt to protect me. I think it might’ve turned differently if Liam came to check up on me at least once.</p>
  <p>He didn’t. He never apologized, never showed his face at my house.</p>
  <p>When I came back to the school, things got even worse. People couldn’t look at me without wincing, I guess my face resembled Christmas tree a little too much. At least someone found me amusing, namely Liam and his bunch of assholes. It didn’t take them a week to start scoffing me, chipping at me bit by bit, testing waters. I wasn’t going to be an easy prey, I was never scared of them. Even though I’ve gotten intimately familiar with their fists over the next few years, I never let them get under my skin.</p>
  <p>Especially Liam.</p>
  <p>It was painful and it took me a very long time, but I managed to burn all the bridges and cut him off my life entirely. Instead, I focused on my future. I excelled at pre-med subjects, volunteered at hospitals and nursing homes, joined molecular biology research group at Harvard and got good letters for my college application. I also got a part-time job at Baskin Robbins to help mom with the bills and started tutoring my sister on pre-school subjects to save money. I even managed to get mom a little piece of jewelry for her birthday.</p>
  <p>With time, I found great friends without really looking for them. I met Elle in sophomore year, when she transferred to us from California. Later same year we started hanging out with Peter. At first, he was a bit of a jerk towards Elle, but apparently he was trying to hide a huge crush on her and soon they started dating. Somehow, I never felt like a third wheel in their relationships. I rather felt like their awkward foster child.</p>
  <p>Unbeknownst to Liam Henderson, I thrived in my own little world. I couldn’t be bothered less by any events in his life or lives of his friends. My disinterest, for some reason, they considered extremely offensive. Frankly, I didn’t really care. By senior year I learned to live with them, learned how to be the lamb in the field full of wolves.</p>
  <p>Speaking of the wolves, recently I stopped crossing paths with Liam. He lost interest in bullying me a few months ago, I suspected it was because I stopped giving him what he wanted. I used to cry back in the day when he beat me, I slipped those pleading looks at him, trying to see if I could find that old Liam hidden somewhere in his eyes. These days I was done looking, there was nothing in there. Nothing at all. That gorgeous, kind boy I once loved, was long gone. This Liam was a typical senseless brat, a football jock hooked on light drugs, who treated girls like shit and had no respect or interest in those he couldn’t exploit.</p>
  <p>The only emotions he evoked in me now, were aversion and contempt.</p>
</div><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter Three</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Over the years, Liam Henderson’s inner circle have changed quite a bit. Many of his so-called ‘friends’ have graduated, others have dropped out, there were also the ones who purposely separated from his toxic crowd, as well as the ones who transferred out to a different school.</p><p>Trish Collins was one of them. The girl that wedged a nail in the coffin of our friendship had tragically lost her father in a car accident two years ago. It happened on the Christmas Eve, the roads were icy, he was returning home from business trip and got into a gruesome crash on a highway. I felt really bad for her. Trish dropped out of school for a while, popularity and instagram have suddenly shifted onto a background plane and she quietly left Montgomery High a few weeks later. I’m not sure what exactly transpired between her and Liam, but they broke up shortly prior to that.</p><p>It was about a year later when I accidentally stumbled across Trish in Starbucks, she was working behind a counter as a barista. To be fair, I always thought Starbucks coffee was ridiculously overpriced and I typically couldn’t afford it, but I’ve put my old grudges aside and stepped in to order a hot mocha. Trish and I ended up talking during her break. She wore regular clothes and seemed more down to earth. She told me how her family lost their fortune to creditors after her dad died, how they were forced to move out of their house and start a new life in a simpler neighborhood, where they were able to rent a more affordable apartment. She apologized for treating me badly and for turning Liam against me. She teared up mentioning how ashamed she was for making fun of my cheap clothes and lack of money. I felt bad hearing her story, but eventually, after our conversation was over, I left Starbucks with a cold cup of coffee and a warm smile, knowing that this brand new Trish will be okay.</p><p>Interestingly, I met Jake on my way out. In fact, I bumped into him and splashed his shirt with my overpriced drink.</p><p>“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” I panicked, putting the cup aside and rushing through my backpack searching for paper towels.</p><p>“It’s all right, it’s my fault,” he replied softly, easing my anxiety. “I’m very lucky you prefer your coffee cold!”</p><p>“Oh, it was actually hot...” I laughed.</p><p>He told me he had another shirt in his car and we headed out of the mall. He made fun of my habit to carry paper towels and I retaliated by pointing at replacement shirts in the trunk of his car. He was charming, funny and very attractive. Turned out he was a freshman at the alma mater of my dream, planning on getting into a law school.</p><p>“Look, I don’t normally do this, but...” he said, “Can I get your number?”</p><p>“Oh... Yeah, sure!” I blurted out, surprised.</p><p>My initial bewilderment at the fact that I could interest someone like him has quickly vanished, because Jake and I clicked right off the bat. It seemed as though I knew him my whole life and we just happened to meet after years of estrangement. He was very easy and interesting to talk to, he took me to a restaurant and a movie theater, we strolled in a park and went on an ice rink where I’ve demonstrated my amazing talent of falling on my face and bruising easily. I’ve got to know Jake better, he was the youngest kid in his family, he was rich and confident, but not spoiled and most definitely not arrogant. He was smart and kind, he knew exactly what he wanted from his life and he actually liked me. After spending years with lifeless self-esteem, hearing words of admiration felt really nice for a change. I wasn’t greedy for flattery and I definitely wasn’t fooling myself about my looks. I just happened to love myself the way I was, I loved my favorite ugly glasses and my comfy clothes, sometimes I even loved having braces on my teeth. Things shifted, however, when Jake told me that I was very handsome. I thought he was making fun of me, but he kept saying it, holding me in his arms as we watched Netflix in his apartment. The more he complimented my looks, the more curious I got about it. Looking back, I realize that what he did for me was far greater than a simple sweet-talk. He was healing my old wounds, making my guilt and shame dissipate, helping me open up and feel comfortable the way I was. As time went on, I started shedding off my shell. I figured that it’s been a while since I’ve tried new clothes on, so I let Jake rearrange my wardrobe and he packed it with new khakis and jeans, t-shirts and pullovers, jackets and scarfs, sneakers and god knows what else. I couldn’t afford all that, I fought him about the money, but he wouldn’t let me pay for any of it. In turn, I resolved on overcoming my fear of contact lenses and finally got my prescription filled. I ruined three pairs before I got one in my eye, I probably looked like I tried to dodge a venomous snake and Jake had to hold me in place in front of the mirror that first time. My braces came off next. It felt awkward sliding my tongue along silky smooth teeth with no titanium in between, for the first time in years.</p><p>Mom was the first one to notice changes in my looks.</p><p>“Baby, you have to tell me. Who is he?” she asked me at dinner one evening.</p><p>“Who’s who? What do you mean?”</p><p>“Your boyfriend,” she murmured, giving me that signature Grinch smile of hers. “Come on baby, don’t give me that look. It’s obvious.”</p><p>I aspirated on the piece of chicken and she actually had to give me Heimlich, which was very embracing. Mom was right though - I was an open book, couldn’t really keep any secrets, especially from her. She was out of her mind when I told her about Jake, she also demanded pictures.</p><p>“Look at that, what a stud!” she exhaled, yanking the iphone from out of my hand and waving it in front of her face in an exaggerated gesture, mocking a fainting spell.</p><p>“Mom, nobody says stud anymore.”</p><p>“Oh shut up, just look at him! You know, I used to date a black guy in college too...”</p><p>“Hard stop! I don’t want to hear it, nope!”</p><p>“But baby-”</p><p>“Nope! I’m leaving! Have lots of laundry to do, see ya later. Love ya, bye!” I blabbed, storming out of the kitchen.</p><p>Over the next few weeks I slowly assimilated into my new lifestyle. Jake took me to his hairdresser and the guy gave me a crazy new haircut which would’ve given the old me a heart attack.</p><p>Slowly but surely I have made it out of my comfort zone, but unfortunately the folks at the school started to notice. People were looking at me in classrooms and cafeteria, whispering and gossiping behind my back, acting like they never knew me before. Some even thought I was a new transfer student. Elle was cracking up at the lunch breaks every day, gathering intel and telling us about crazy conspiracy theories floating around about me.</p><p>When the fist wave of amusement passed and whispers died down, random people started talking to me out of the blue, some have praised my looks, others commented on my haircut and clothes and also, for some reason, my sneakers. Was foot fetish that widespread, or was I just too out of touch with modern trends?</p><p>In general, people were nicer to me, even Liam’s gang was leaving me alone for the most part.</p><p>“Dylan, this is crazy,” Elle whispered in my ear when we came out of chemistry class on Thursday. “I’m getting a third DM on my Insta asking for your number. There’s one girl that doesn’t know that you’re gay, and-”</p><p>Her phone buzzed and she looked at the screen.</p><p>“Oh, never mind, she does. She still wants your number!” Elle cracked, breaking into laughter.</p><p>“That is, uh... flattering?”</p><p>“Wait, that’s not all! If I’d tell you who one of the guys is, you’re going to flip.”</p><p>“Don’t want to know. Nah, just delete it.”</p><p>“Dude, it’s Sebastian.”</p><p>“What Sebastian?”</p><p>“Sebastian-Sebastian!”</p><p>“What?!” I exclaimed.</p><p>“Man, I’m telling you. People went nuts! We need to put your old glasses back, I’m afraid it’s the only way to keep you safe.”</p><p>I couldn’t help but glance at Liam’s table. Sebastian was sitting there beside the king himself, chewing on his roast beef sandwich. The guy that used to beat me up just months ago was now asking for my number? Yeah, right. Thank god I wasn’t registered on social media.</p><p>“He just wants to jump me. It’s a trick.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t be so sure. Rumor has it, he’s bi.”</p><p>“I don’t care what he is. That guy hates me.”</p><p>“That’s what I though about Pete before he threw himself at me.” Elle murmured like a cat, adding, “You never know.”</p><p>This commotion at school was creating unnecessary distraction from what was really important for me. I was blessed having loved ones around me, I had my mom and Sarah at home, I had my best friends who were loyal and caring and a boyfriend who was crazy about me. For the first time in years I was genuinely happy and I wasn’t going to pay attention to hormonal bursts of thirsty teenagers at my school.</p><p>Concentrating on this thought I began spending more time with them. I took Sarah to amusement park and got her a huge teddy bear, I also went to a water park with Peter and Elle. After spending weekend with Jake and his family at their summer house in Cape Cod, I barely got out of his car in front of my porch, only to be greeted by my mother, standing there with a creepy smile and a letter in her hand.</p><p>“Mom?” I asked. “What’s going on?”</p><p>“Dylan! Dylan don’t panic!”</p><p>“What is it in your hand, mom?” I asked, biting my lip.</p><p>“Did you tell him?” she asked Jake.</p><p>“No, I was quiet, I swear!”</p><p>“Tell me what?” I gasped, turning around to face my lying ass boyfriend.</p><p>I carefully took the letter out of her hand and saw a Harvard logo on it.</p><p>“Is that?..” I asked. “But it’s too early...”</p><p>“Honey, just open it!” Helen nudged, jittering in anticipation.</p><p>It was about ten minutes later, in our dimly lit kitchen, where I cut that letter open with a knife. My hands were shaking as I pulled out the paper and looked at the text.</p><p>“I got in.” I heaved. “Holy shit, I got in...”</p><p>Next few hours were very joyful and loud. I was playing with my little sister, Mom blacked out on the sofa after overdosing on champagne and Jake just couldn’t stop kissing me. While I was putting Sarah to bed in her room, Jake ran out to his car and brought me a gift he bought earlier.</p><p>“Jake, what is it?”</p><p>“Just open it.”</p><p>I unwrapped the foil and took out a box with Apple Watch and a small card, reading <em>‘Congratulations, Dr. Moore’</em>.</p><p>“You can’t keep spoiling me like that.” I protested.</p><p>“A simple thank you would’ve been enough,” he smiled.</p><p>“Thank you,” I whispered.</p><p>I kissed him and climbed on his lap, wrapping my legs around his waist.</p><p>“I love you...” Jake exhaled in my ear as I ran my lips along the crevice of his neck.</p><p>I was beyond happy during the following couple of weeks. Nothing and no one could affect my good mood, I was simply beaming with it. Apart from Peter and Elle nobody knew about my college appointment, but random people kept flocking to our cafeteria table like it was an open house, chatting with us as if we suddenly turned into cool kids. It still weirded me out, I wasn’t their typical idol, I wasn’t on social media and didn’t follow their hierarchy. These were the same kids that stood there and laughed at me being beaten to death just recently. I was polite to them, but I didn’t want their company and I seriously considered listening to Elle and putting my old glasses back on. I started spending more time in library in between classes, mostly because nobody ever entered it and it wasn’t allowed to chat inside. Extra time to read some of the college books came as an added benefit.</p><p>One late afternoon I got stuck in the library while Elle and Peter went out on a date. Jake promised to pick me up and I was waiting for him on a parking lot with my headphones on, listening to Shawn Mendez’s ‘Monster’. I was contemplating how lucky I was, playing Jake’s words over in my head, recalling how he told me he loved me the night I got my acceptance letter. I even started dancing, which was a deeply disturbing spectacle for anyone to see. Thankfully there was no one around, so I could go ahead and embarrass myself as much as I wanted.</p><p>Then I heard the whistle of his tires. Jake parked his Mercedes right in front of me, came out of his car and walked towards me. Boy, did I miss him or what? His dark eyes, looking at me with so much passion, his warm hand landing on my cheek and making me melt. He drew me in for a deep, hungry kiss and I obliged, loving every second of it.</p><p>“What the fuck...”</p><p>Our lips parted upon hearing this and we turned towards the road.</p><p>Liam Henderson was standing in front of Jake’s car, looking at us and breathing like he had an asthma attack.</p><p>What was he doing here?</p><p>He appeared sick, like he caught a stomach bug or something. His face was an earthy shade of gray, his jaws were jammed, teeth gritted as if he was in pain. I brushed this thought away, he probably just overdid weed.</p><p>Regardless, I was spending too much time thinking about him.</p><p>“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Jake asked him, shielding me with his arm.</p><p>Liam glared at my boyfriend for a brief moment, which stirred up my anger. What the hell was happening here?</p><p>“He’s probably high on something,” I said, wrapping my arm around Jake’s waist. “Let’s go home.”</p><p>“Hey-hey, it’s alright baby. Who is this?” Jake asked, feeling uneasiness on my part.</p><p>“Nobody, just a guy from school.”</p><p>I couldn’t even look at Liam without getting nauseous. Honestly, I had no clue what he wanted from me. Whatever it was, he wasn’t getting it. Picking up on the rising tension between the two of them, I was about to pull Jake towards the car, but Liam surpassed me. He suddenly shuddered, brushed off his mental fog and walked away, leaving awkward silence to linger in the air.</p><p>Jake raised his eyebrow and winked at me, smiling, “Looks like shrooms to me.”</p><p>“Probably,” I chuckled nervously. “Let’s get out of here.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter Four</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Liam Henderson:</p><p>
  <br/>
  
</p><p><br/>Jake tormented me with questions as we drove to my house. ‘Who was it? How do you know him? Why did he freak you out? Does he hurt you at school?’</p><p>I never really told him about Liam. Never thought it was necessary. Jake knew I had a crush on a straight guy a few years ago, it wasn’t a big deal for him and I never got too specific. Thankfully he wasn’t a jealous type - he trusted me and I figured that Liam wasn’t important enough to even talk about. The only person who knew about my prior feelings for him was Elle, I told her last year when she slept over at my place. I feel like mom probably always knew, but I haven’t discussed this with her either.</p><p>I was able to douse Jake’s bout of curiosity and assured him I was safe at school. I wasn’t even lying, lately nobody bullied me.</p><p>It must’ve been months since the last time I thought about Liam. Lying on my bed that night, I couldn’t help but wonder what made him come up to us on the parking lot. He didn’t look particularly healthy and I pondered if he really was doing harder drugs these days.</p><p>The remainder of the week was very rainy, some parts of our street got flooded and I felt like a ninja, jumping over the puddles in a raincoat. Those were the only days I’d typically miss having a car. Peter was giving me rides back home, but I was usually getting to school by myself.</p><p>Speaking of school, reluctantly, I began to notice extra attention directed at me from Liam’s table. Both Liam and Sebastian were constantly glancing at me, which felt very weird. I had the gut feeling that they were plotting something against me, but Elle kept spewing out insane conspiracy theories about how Seb wanted nothing but to fuck me. Interestingly, it was his eyes that were staring at me non-stop, glued onto my back as he sat behind me in nearly every class. He was creeping me out big time.</p><p>Contrary to his friend, surveillance on Liam’s part was very stealthy, but I could tell he was paying attention to my every move. On those rare instances when I caught him, he turned away hoping I wouldn’t notice. I couldn’t figure it out and by the end of the week decided that my attempts at gauging their motivation weren’t worth the effort.</p><p>When the skies finally cleared up it felt nice to move outside for PE classes. One of the perks of Montgomery High were its sports facilities. Up until a few months ago I wasn’t taking advantage of them, avoiding PE like the plague. Lately, however, I grew fond of the running track around the football field and a swimming pool. I discovered that running was particularly fun, especially for someone as introverted as me. Having the new smart watch helped keep a track on it and motivated me to continue. I’d typically plug in the earbuds and cut circles around the field, listening to music, it usually left me with sore muscles, but the aftertaste of feeling refreshed and energized was worth it.</p><p>Now, usually they tried to avoid having football team on the field when we, mere mortals, had our regular PE classes, but in anticipation of the upcoming finals coach Jenkins jacked up their training schedule and poor football players were stuck on the field nearly every afternoon and evening. Liam was the captain of their team for the past two years, I believe he was the first sophomore to be elected in the history of the school. I saw him running around on the field, yelling at his teammates, half of whom looked like they were about to pass out from the heat stroke. Thankfully, noise cancellation in my earphones did a damn good job muffling their screams and I was able to enjoy my run for a while.</p><p>That is, until I was rudely interrupted.</p><p>“Hey, Dylan! Dylan, wait up!” I heard behind my back and nearly tripped.</p><p>Whoever called my name was running after me and tapping at the back of my shoulder. I slowed down and took off my ear buds. Turning around, I was startled by a looming 6’3” frame of Sebastian Costa. His hair was a mess, sweat was pouring down his face, his breathing was labored and I actually felt bad seeing how exhausted he looked. This was quickly replaced by a sense of heightened alertness. Him, approaching me like this couldn’t signify anything good.</p><p>Sebastian was a very definition of a dumb jock. He had a German-Italian father and a Hispanic mother to whom he owed his good looks, but beyond appearances there wasn’t much substance to his personality. He did good at sports which along with generous donations from his parents have kept him afloat in the school, but growing up spoiled and unpunished turned him into someone just as shallow and empty as Liam. In fact - up until a few months ago Sebastian was my biggest nightmare. None of Liam’s friends have bothered me as much as he did. The only person who left more bruises on me over the years was Liam himself. One couldn’t blame me for being cautious.</p><p>“What do you want?” I asked, stepping back and looking around.</p><p>We were surrounded by a bunch of our classmates and two coaches running the training. He was stupid, but not stupid enough to beat me right in front of them.</p><p>“I just wanna talk,” he groaned, pressing hands against his thighs and bending down, trying to catch his breath. “Can you meet me after school?”</p><p>“What? No.” I replied, taken aback by his impudence.</p><p>“Why not?”</p><p>“Seb, what do you want from me?” I asked, waving my arms to the sides. “I really don’t understand. If you want to beat me, then do it. Don’t make it worse by actually making me talk to you.”</p><p>“Look, I’m not gonna hurt you, okay? Just hear me out...”</p><p>On a spur of the moment, I suddenly noticed how uncomfortable he looked. He entangled his fingers together and folded this palms in and out, cracking the joints. His arms were shaking, he was anxiously tapping his feet on the rubber ground of the running tracks. His eyes moved down and left, as if tying to avoid looking directly at me. Elle’s words reverberated in my ears and realization hit me like a ton of bricks. Could he really...</p><p>
  <em>Really?..</em>
</p><p>No, there was no way... He was straight! He dated half of the girls in this school, last year he banged our new English teacher, she ended up divorcing her husband and leaving the school after he blabbed this out to everyone. Where was this coming from?</p><p>Before I had a chance to get my answer, I saw Liam approaching us from the field, “Hey, what’s going on here? Seb, we need you back at the practice.”</p><p>“Give me a few minutes, I’ll be right back,” he reported, but Liam didn’t leave.</p><p>The situation turned more and more awkward. Liam sood there with his arms on his waist, watching us like on a jury trial, while we both remained silent.</p><p>“Nice talk,” I mouthed, putting my ear buds back on.</p><p>Sebastian huffed in irritation, “I’ll catch you after school.”</p><p>“Good luck trying.” I retaliated.</p><p>“What are you talking about?” Liam intervened, asking both of us.</p><p>I gave him disparaging glance and ignored his question, running off the tracks to leave the stadium. Despite my careful attempts at avoiding Sebastian for the rest of the day, the strategy to sit this out in the library and wait until he leaves crashed and burned. Once I came out of the building, I saw him standing at the parking lot, expecting me. Weirdly, Liam’s Camaro was still parked at his usual spot, despite the fact that their practice was long finished.</p><p>I hurried off the sidewalk, hoping that Seb won’t notice me, but it didn’t work - he caught up to me in no time.</p><p>“Dylan, wait!”</p><p>I stopped and took a deep breath, bracing for what I hoped would just be another beating session, instead of Elle’s insane theory coming true.</p><p>“I don’t have much time,” I said, looking at him.</p><p>“No, I’m not gonna... It’s just, I wanna ask you...” he stuttered. “I wanna ask you out.”</p><p>Nope.</p><p>I didn’t just hear that, did I?</p><p>“I’m sorry, what?” I asked, confused out of my mind.</p><p>“I wanna go out with you. I’m asking you out on a date.” Sebastian stated, with more confidence in his voice this time.</p><p>He looked me right in the eyes, keeping his hands in his pockets but still fidgeting in anxiety. Two years ago Ms. Tompkins forced him to play Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet play at the school theater. It was a complete disaster, this guy couldn’t act, at all. This is how I knew that he was being genuine now. It would’ve been too elaborate a plot for him to follow, if this were to be a stupid prank.</p><p>I swallowed hard. Yeah, having a beating would’ve been better.</p><p>“I thought you... Aren’t you dating girls?” I asked.</p><p>“I go both ways.”</p><p>“Since when? You call me a faggot every chance you get!” I spat sharply.</p><p>I immediately bit my lip, seeing how he winced hearing this.</p><p>“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...” I apologized. “Seb, I... I’m flattered, but I have a boyfriend. I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Oh... Uh, you do?”</p><p>I nodded slowly, with my lips tightly sealed in embarrassment. I just wanted to sink into the ground and escape this conversation as quickly as possible.</p><p>“Okay...” he whispered, scratching the back of his head. “Yeah, it’s not a big deal. Sorry for taking your time.”</p><p>“It’s alright. See you around.”</p><p>I was about to leave, but he decided to ask me something I did not expect, “You’re not lying, are you? You know, just to get rid of me... You’re really seeing someone?”</p><p>“I am.” I replied, not sure how to feel about his question.</p><p>“And if you didn’t? Would you have gone out with me?”</p><p>Once again I bit my lip in awkwardness of the moment. Who knew Sebastian Costa was a fan of hypothetical scenarios.</p><p>“I don’t think so.” I said, quietly.</p><p>He nodded, looking away, which forced me to add, “I don’t... I don’t trust you, Sebastian. Not after everything you did. I’m sorry.”</p><p>I hurt him, I could tell that I did. Not sure if I felt any remorse for my words, but I told him the truth. I had one particularly nasty flaw to my character - I didn’t know how to forgive people. I was just like Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, ‘My good opinion once lost, is lost forever’.</p><p>I pulled my hoodie over the head and walked away, leaving Seb in the parking lot, all by himself. As I was making myself a promise to never tell Elle or anyone else about our conversation, I passed black Chevy Camaro and saw Liam sitting behind the wheel, staring at me. Immediately after we made an eye contact, he drove out of his parking spot and swiveled down the road at a high speed, leaving me puzzled by his actions. This day was getting exceedingly more bizarre and my capacity to process its events was rapidly diminishing. I ended up cancelling dinner plans with Jake and fell asleep on my bed just a few minutes later.</p><p>I’ve had one of those rapidly changing dreams that wore you out and pulled you though tons of emotions overnight. I remember briefly waking up in sweat when mom popped into my room to check on me, I also remember hearing my phone buzz a few times, but I was way too dead to actually wake up and reply.</p><p>As it frequently happens when you fall asleep at 6 pm, you wake up in the middle of the night. It sucks and screws up your entire day, but at least you have some free time on your hands to run some piled-up tasks. I yawned, looked at the alarm clock and quietly cursed. It was 3:00 a.m. I rubbed my eyes and tiptoed to the bathroom to rinse my face and put on the contacts, careful not to wake up mom and Sarah. I looked at my iphone and saw several skipped calls and text messages. All of them were from an unknown number.</p><p>‘Hey, can you come out? I’m outside your house, I want to talk.’ I read, scrolling down.</p><p>Was it Sebastian? I tensed up and sat straight on the bed. If so, it’ll be a little extra creepy for him to follow me to my house.</p><p>‘Can you pick up your phone? I tried calling three times.’ next message said. ‘Please, I promise I just need to talk.’</p><p>I scrolled down to the bottom and saw the last text, sent 20 minutes later.</p><p>‘It’s Liam. I don’t know if you still have my number saved.’</p><p>I pinched myself in the thigh, checking if I was still asleep. Why the hell would Liam Henderson text me in the middle of the night, let alone drive to my house? I hoped mom didn’t see him. I received his last message three hours ago, judging by the frequency of his texts he spent quite some time waiting for me to respond. Was he outside of my house this whole time?</p><p>I gulped nervously and stepped towards the window, moving the curtain aside. <em>Surely, by now he was long gone, it was 3 in the morning...</em></p><p>“Holy shit,” I mouthed.</p><p>I was looking at his car. It was right there, parked in the driveway across from my house. Street lights dimply lit our quiet neighborhood, where his pitch black Camaro was the only sedan amongst the sea of SUVs and Minivans.</p><p>I debated whether I should even come out or simply ignore him, but looking at his first message, he spent over four and a half hours at my driveway, which was too creepy to ignore.</p><p>If we were ever to get robbed, it would be the easiest job in the world, because Helen was a super heavy sleeper, just as I was. Not taking any risks, after putting on my sweatpants and a warm jacket, I went downstairs trying to be as quiet as possible.</p><p>The night street was chilly, cold air burned my lungs, forcing to remember childhood asthma. I wrapped my arms around the chest to stay warm and walked towards his car. I cautiously approached the driver’s side and bent forward to try and look through the window. Tinted glass windows were illegal on cars in our state, but of course this asshole didn’t give a rat’s ass to the rules that common folks had to follow. I had to create a tunnel with my palms to actually be able to peak through.</p><p>He was asleep, head cocked to the side, left hand resting on his lap, right hand holding a bottle of... vodka? He was wearing his varsity jersey with a black shirt underneath. For the first time in years I had a chance to examine his face this close. He still snorted every once in a while when he slept, and his face didn’t change much, at least it appeared so under this lighting. He looked calm and peaceful - something he most definitely wasn’t in real life. I almost wanted to leave him like this, but it was very cold and I was worried he’ll catch another meningitis and I’ll end up feeling guilty. Driven by the selfish desire to spare myself from any regrets down the road, I did the right thing and knocked on the window, startling him. Liam jerked and opened his eyes. He appeared disoriented and drunk, examining his surroundings like he tried to remember where he was, wiping the drool off the corner of his mouth. I stepped away to give him time to get to his senses.</p><p>The door soon opened and he came out. His hair was messy after sleep, eyelids were puffy as he squinted, adjusting to the street lights. He snuffled and made a few wobbling steps forward, facing me. He wasn’t very stable on his feet, must’ve been from the alcohol.</p><p>“I heard you got into Harvard,” he said with a raspy voice.</p><p>“Yeah, I did,” I replied, surprised by the fact that he even knew about this. “What did you want to talk about?”</p><p>“You always wanted to get there...” he spoke, as if to himself. “I guess dreams come true, huh?”</p><p>I ignored his words. Last thing I needed at 3 a.m. was a small talk from Liam Henderson. He bit his lip and stared at me intensely. I couldn’t figure out what was on his mind.</p><p>“Why are you here?” I asked.</p><p>“I want to talk.”</p><p>“About what?”</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p>“Really?” I asked, unable to withhold a chuckle. “Nice talking to you. Have a good night.”</p><p>I turned around to leave, but he jumped forward and grabbed by arm, “Wait, don’t go.”</p><p>“Take your hand off me.” I uttered, sounding as serious as a heart attack.</p><p>He snatched his arm away and raised his hands in the air in a calming, capitulating gesture. Didn’t really work on me. Being around him was repulsing to me and he knew it.</p><p>“You have three minutes.” I said.</p><p>“What were you talking about with Sebastian?” he asked, pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his jeans.</p><p>“That is non of your business.”</p><p>“Did he threaten you?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Did he try to hurt you?”</p><p>“Why are you... What? No!” I exclaimed. “Hurting me is your job, isn’t it?”</p><p>Liam pursed his lips and looked down. His fingers played around with a lighter, as he tried to ignite the tip of his cigarette.</p><p>“What, are you jealous that he’ll beat me without getting you in on a fun?” I asked.</p><p>“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Liam mumbled, putting cigarette in his mouth.</p><p>“Enlighten me, then.”</p><p>He sharply inhaled, drawing smoke into his lungs and finally stopped fidgeting.</p><p>“I miss you,” he muttered.</p><p>My reaction to this absurdity wasn’t anything surprising. My eyebrows flew up in the air, but the laughter set in just a fraction of a second later, with ridiculousness of his words overpowering everything else.</p><p>“What’s so funny?” he asked, as if my laughter insulted him.</p><p>“Dude, you’re drunk.” I said. “Please get an Uber and go home.”</p><p>“Did you hear what I said?”</p><p>“Yeah, you just said bullshit.”</p><p>“Bullshit?”</p><p>“Yes!” I chuckled.</p><p>He looked distressed, smoking his cigarette and clenching his fists.</p><p>“Okay, your time is up. I’m getting back home.” I announced, but before I was able to move, he grabbed my arm again.</p><p>“I said I fucking missed you, what’s wrong with that?!” he hissed in annoyance.</p><p>“Let me go.”</p><p>“Why do you have to be so fucking stuck up? You really think you’re so much better than others?”</p><p>“I said, let me go. Don’t fucking touch me!” I shouted, forcefully ripping my arm out of his grasp.</p><p>“What the fuck is wrong with you? I just wanna talk to you!” he reasoned.</p><p>“And tell me what?! That you missed me? Are you fucking crazy, what do you expect me to say?” I asked in frustration, feeling air burning my lungs more with each heavy breath I took.</p><p>He looked lost, not knowing what to answer.</p><p>“I don’t know...” he whispered.</p><p>“What, you suddenly want to be friends again? That’s never going to happen! We’re not friends, you’re less than a fucking nobody to me!” I shouted, exploding at him in the middle of the night street.</p><p>He did not expect to hear this from me and that was infuriating. He rocked back and stepped off, nearly tripping on his heel. As I was breathing heavily, trying to calm down, he had that look on his face like I just shoved a knife in his chest, which triggered me even more.</p><p>“Did I...” he uttered, “Did I fuck it up?..”</p><p>“Yes!”</p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p>“No. You’re not sorry and I won’t forgive you. Don’t waste your time.”</p><p>“But I need you. Dylan, please... I’m really sorry.”</p><p>He looked at me like a guilty puppy and I could swear I saw a small tear in his eye. Did this motherfucker really think he could trick me with this shit?</p><p>“Fuck you!” I spat. “Fuck you and your apology. You beat me like a fucking animal for three years, you humiliated me and treated me like shit!”</p><p>He stepped back. I stepped forward.</p><p>“I fucking hate you, Liam. There’s nothing you can do to fix this.”</p><p>At the height of my erupting rage I took off my jacket, grabbed at the neck of my shirt and pulled it off, baring my chest and abdomen. I inched closer to him, staring right into his dark eyes.</p><p>“Remember last year?” I asked, closing the distance between us. “Half of your friends were graduating, you got wasted at the prom and decided to have fun with me...”</p><p>To his dismay and confusion, I took his right hand and brought it to by naked stomach, shrugging at how icy cold his fingers felt against my skin.</p><p>“You see the scar?” I asked, forcing him to feel my contracted skin. “You broke three of my ribs, one of them shattered and ruptured my spleen. I lost half a gallon of blood and passed out before they figured it out and took me to the OR to cut the spleen out.”</p><p>His mouth was agape, he was looking at my incision scar with such shock, as if he didn’t even assume this was possible. His ignorance only fueled my anger.</p><p>“You did this, Liam. It wasn’t Sebastian or Mark. Every one of your friends told you to stop, they said you were pushing it, but you were having too much fun, weren’t you? You kept beating me and you laughed, and when you stood up, I thought you were finally done, but no - you started hammering at me with your feet.”</p><p>“I... I didn’t...” he stuttered, dropping his cigarette, his eyes darting from my scar to my face. “I’m so sor-”</p><p>“Where were you last year?” I cut in, ignoring hot tears rolling down my cheeks. “I didn’t see you stalking my driveway to say hi or see how I was doing. To see why I dropped out of the school for half a semester. You didn’t even notice me gone, did you?”</p><p>He was gasping, eyes wide open, fixed at my stomach as his shaking fingers slid down on my scar.</p><p>“There is nothing inside you. Nothing at all. You’re pathetic and sad, and empty.” I said quietly. “One day, you will end up in jail, Liam. I could’ve thrown you there myself, but I didn’t want to hurt Emma.”</p><p>He was trembling. I was surprised to see how he started crying, wiping tears off his cheeks and turning away from me, as if he was ashamed to look me in the eyes. It was actually funny to see, I even cracked a smile - he was showing me an Oscar-worthy performance!</p><p>Nevertheless, this conversation was over. I grabbed my shirt and a jacket from the floor and put them back on. I didn’t even feel cold anymore.</p><p>“Hey, hey don’t cry big boy...” I whispered, gently cupping his cheek with my hand and forcing him to look into my eyes. “It’s okay. I guess this talk just didn’t go the way you imagined it in your head?”</p><p>I squeezed his cheek and added, “Just make sure to get out of here before Helen wakes up. If she sees you, she’ll be the first to call the cops.”</p><p>Liam wiped his tears with the sleeves of his jersey and retreated back to his Chevy Camaro without saying a word. He was gone from my street before I made it back to my porch.</p><p>I took a deep breath and smiled, noting that the cold air wasn’t bothering my lungs anymore.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter Five</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s been six days since he showed his face at the school. Liam Henderson went missing in action, skipping phone calls, ignoring messages and eliminating his presence on social media. The most annoying part was how big of a deal it was to everyone. A guy decides to ditch school for a week to have fun, and minions go loosing their minds as though all roads lead to his door.</p><p>“I heard he crashed his Camaro,” Elle said, biting on a soggy french fry and squinting at the taste.</p><p>She spat it out and squeamishly pinched its corpse with her nails, dissecting fried potato and groaning, “Ew, look at this thing... It’s like, 90 percent oil.”</p><p>“That’s horrible,” Pete commented.</p><p>“Thank you!” she nodded, accepting his acknowledgement.</p><p>“I’m talking about Camaro.” Pete clarified, adding, “Elle, please stop picking on it, it’s gross.”</p><p>“What’s so bad about it?..” I asked Pete.</p><p>“Thank you! I’m just a curious gir-” Elle started, but I interrupted, continuing my thought.</p><p>“..His parents can always buy him a new one.”</p><p>Elle rolled her eyes, took out her phone and snapped a picture of her plate.</p><p>“I’m sending this to CDC,” she proudly stated, giving each of us a discrediting look.</p><p>“He could’ve gotten hurt,” Peter pushed. “For all we know he can be in a hospital or worse, nobody heard from him for a week.”</p><p>“Well, if he got hurt then he’ll just know how it feels like.” I commented, licking the last of my pudding off the spoon. “Maybe it’ll teach him a lesson or two.”</p><p>Pete frowned at me, but then he looked past my shoulder and saw something that forced the expression on his face to turn regretful and awkward. I heard gasps and moans, people started twisting their necks in the same direction and I didn’t even have to look behind my back to know exactly who just walked through the door.</p><p>The ‘king’ himself casually ambled into the cafeteria, wearing jeans and a black leather jacket with a pair of sunglasses. He looked like a hungover Hollywood star trying to escape from paparazzi wearing a shitty disguise.</p><p>“Guess who was partying all week?” I said sarcastically. “He does look like shit, I’ll give him that.”</p><p>Peter stuffed his face with a sandwich and I felt a sting of shame for my comments. I detested violence and yet here I was, letting my grudges take better of me. My venomous rant was made worse by hypocrisy, because I felt relieved seeing Liam taking a seat at his usual spot. The last thing I needed on my consciousness was his alleged car crash. As I last recalled it was me who sent his drunk ass off my neighborhood in the middle of the night.</p><p>“Did you guys hear about the party?” Elle asked.</p><p>“What party?” I asked.</p><p>“Apparently Jason Wu’s mom caught his father in bed with his secretary!” she explained.</p><p>Peter and I exchanged looks, trying to understand the connection between these events. It wasn’t happening.</p><p>“A-a-and?..” Pete moaned.</p><p>“A-and mister Wu took his wife to Bahamas to patch up their crumbling marriage. Jason is throwing a party on Saturday. We should go!”</p><p>“Elle, we never went to a party before.” I stated the obvious.</p><p>“The more reasons to go now! Just think about it, it’s a senior year and you’ve turned into a hottie! If this is a live version of Cinderella, you know what that means - I’m your damn fairy godmother and I’m sending you to a party!”</p><p>“No thank you, I’ve got a prince already.”</p><p>“Well, you told me you guys are wearing chastity belts till your birthday, so you shouldn’t refuse a magic wand.”</p><p>“Too much information.” Peter exhaled, lowering his head in embarrassment.</p><p>“Besides, you can always take Jake with us, he needs to be showcased,” she offered. “Come on, Dylan! It’s a part of normal high school experience, an ultimate cliché thing that we all have to do! We have to go!”</p><p>Elle kept brainwashing us for the rest of the day and drove Pete and I to a complete submission, forcing us to capitulate just before chemistry started. The rest of the school day was rather uneventful, Liam wasn’t bothering me, in fact, he didn’t look at me even once, which felt reassuring. If I’d have to guess as to why he came back to school at all, it’ll be his football team. He wasn’t stupid by any stretch of imagination, but spending years prioritizing shitty things had left him with an average GPA and his only legal shot at getting into a good school was through football. College recruiters have started visiting their games and he really had to put out - coach Jenkins was foaming at his mouth this past week while he was gone.</p><p>I went for my shift at Baskin Robbins and spent a couple of hours before sleep digging through the research paperwork. Working in BR had it’s advantages, for instance - it made me ‘the best big brother in the whole world’ according to Sarah and I refused to believe that a sugar rush from Rainbow Sherbet I was bribing her with had anything to do with this statement.</p><p>On the evening of the following day, the long awaited get-together at Jake’s apartment finally happened. Jacob was planning it for a long time, he went through tons of cooking recipes on YouTube, bought extra pillows so we could all get comfy on his sofa and vacuumed the heck out of the place. He was very fond of my friends and needless to say, both Peter and Elle returned his affections. On my part, I could tell that Jacob Williams was a very cunning young man. I didn’t pick up on this when we started dating, but the more our relationship progressed, the more things I’ve noticed. He knew exactly what do and what to say in critical situations, he knew how to manipulate environment around him to bring things into his favor. Take Elle, for example. He realized how important she was to me, and the first few times they’ve met he found out about her obsession with Taylor Swift. The thing about Elle, she’s very energetic and enthusiastic, but as common as it is with people like her, she frequently loses interest about things she’s overly preoccupied with. This never held truth over her eternal love for Tay-Tay. I wouldn’t be shocked if somebody told me she was secretly weaving voodoo dolls of Katy Perry and sticking needles into her eyes before going to bed. Every time Taylor spawned out a new album it was an occurrence of biblical proportions in the eyes of my best friend. Bringing Taylor into conversation was a silent, but strictly enforced taboo between both me and Peter. Long story short, on Elle’s 18th birthday Jacob and I arrived at her house to celebrate. Imagine the surprise on all of our faces, when Jake pulled out his phone and a fucking Taylor Swift appeared on the FaceTime screen.</p><p>Yes, that’s right. I had no idea how he did it, and to this day Jake never disclosed this, but somehow he got a fucking international superstar to give a random 18-year old girl countless blessings along with birthday wishes and an overly cheesy speech about pursuing her dreams and all things girl-power.</p><p>When miss Swift hung up, Elle had a seizure on the floor, crying and laughing and throwing herself on Jake’s neck. I’ve never seen her this happy and it should probably come as a given, but after that day Elle has turned into Jake’s number one fan. I remember my own reaction to this stunt of his. Despite the fact that I wasn’t a crazy fan, like any other mere mortal, I was star-stricken in the moment and probably looked like an idiot. The more I thought about it, however, the more disturbing this whole arrangement felt.</p><p>Even if you didn’t know him, you could tell that Jake was offensively rich. His apartment, his car, clothes, spending habits and an overall vibe he radiated gave it away entirely. Unlike Liam, he wasn’t born into wealth. His parents, Reginald and Shanice Williams were both Boston natives and had their fair share of struggles climbing their ladder up to success. Shanice was a Cardiologist at Mass General, she also owned her outpatient practice and naturally, she was thrilled when she found out I wanted to become a doctor myself. I spent hours talking to her, she told me stories about her time in the medical school and the hurdles she had, being the only African American in her class and coming from a family with an abusive alcoholic father. People constantly mistook her for an aide or a nurse, many patients were proudly and openly racist, requesting to see ‘someone different’ without explaining why. She said things were much different now, but I still felt bad hearing this, I appreciated a little insight on where I was dipping my feet and she was helping me set realistic expectations for actual real-life medical practice. Also, I was definitely able to connect with her on the matter of having an abusive father. These days her hindrances were mostly behind her and Shanice was making over 700K a year, which wasn’t a bad settlement at all, but the true wealth of their family had much more to do with Mr. Williams’s income.</p><p>Jake was always a tad bit mysterious when it came to answering questions about his father. Reginald himself was a lovely man in his 60’s, he probably cooked the best barbecue ribs I’ve ever tasted during the Cape Cod retreat we had last month. I’ve got to meet most of Jake’s family back then, including his older brothers with their wives, but Reginald was on the phone nearly the entire time and I didn’t get much chance to chat with him. He had one of those names that auto-populated on google three letters in. The web was festering with headlines about him, I saw his pictures with politicians and stars, read several articles about his humanitarian and philanthropic missions, as well as environmental impact of the latest app he sponsored. Jake tried explaining it to me once, but I don’t think I entirely understood. Apparently, Mr. Williams owned a company that invested money into software engineers. Jake explained that there were lots of very enthusiastic and promising startups all over US and that his father always had a hunch for the projects that typically succeeded. He was now left with big shares in several thriving IT companies as a result. Jake was never specific about his connections and I never considered googling Mr. Williams’s name until the day Jake casually got a certain singer-songwriter to FaceTime with a bunch of nobodies from Boston.</p><p>For the past few years I was trying to keep my distance from rich people. In fact, I strongly associated wealth with unhappiness. I’m not talking about living well in general, but rather that unprepared people were easily spoiled by insurmountable amount of money. In my experience, money turned my father into an asshole way before he assaulted me. As soon as those checks from his law firm started cashing in, he became dismissive towards me and mom, was buying us off with expensive gifts, spending less and less time with us - not necessarily because he had too much work. It didn’t really stop there, kids at my school were a constant reminder of this notion. If you had money, you were worth being friends with, despite your looks and your overall substance. Weirdly, it was after my parents’ divorce that we felt happier as a family, living off mom’s modest real estate agent salary, eating takeout pizza and having fun at the kitchen playing cards and hide and seek with Sarah - things that my father forgot how to appreciate. Moreover, I was convinced that Liam’s descent also had lots to do with money. I was much less critical of Henderson’s wealth growing up, mainly because Emma shattered my preconception on the matter - she was modest and kind, she never boasted about their living situation and was the opposite of being materialistic. I always felt comfortable and warm in their home, eating her cookies and being genuinely happy to have a second mom. If there was a person I’ve missed most in my life, it was her, and only then, my dad. I wished Liam could handle wealth with as much grace as his mother. But no, as soon as he got his hands on the car and his father increased his monthly allowance, Liam started disappearing in night clubs and parties, buying expensive shit to modify and tune his car, throwing money at girls, turning into a shallow and empty shell of what used to be my best friend.</p><p>So yeah, I won’t deny that I felt that chill running down my spine when it dawned on me just how rich Jake really was. I’m glad I’ve realized this after getting to know his family better - they were sweet and kind, and above all appeared very close together as a family, which I suspected was a result of Shanice’s iron fist policy around the house. When it came to her, I could see that Jake picked up some of her traits, but there was much more to him that was hidden from my eyes, leaving me to speculate and wonder about what truly was going on in his head.</p><p>“So when’s that party, again?” Jake asked.</p><p>The four of us fell apart on his unfolded sofa like a bunch of lazy seals, digesting the perfect steak dinner he cooked for us and binging on a Netflix movie.</p><p>“Saturday,” Elle said, stretching on the sofa and letting out a yawn. “Please make sure this sad turd actually makes it there? I have a feeling he’s going to ditch us last minute.”</p><p>“I won’t!” I protested. “I’m coming!</p><p>“Uh-huh,” she moaned, unimpressed. “Jake, please?”</p><p>“You can count on me, Elle,” he chuckled.</p><p>The next moment all four of us cringed at the scene taking place on the screen. It was one of those god awful Netflix specials about a small town girl that moved to New York and got herself in a love triangle with a bad-boy millionaire and a goody-two-shoes owner of an adorable German Shepard.</p><p>“Oh, what the hell...” Peter groaned. “Did she really just?..”</p><p>“That’s just stupid.” I commented.</p><p>“This girl has no self-respect!” Elle exclaimed. “I mean, how could she?! The guy goes around treating her like shit, she meets a fucking prince and then throws herself at that Christian Grey bugaboo?”</p><p>“Yeah, that wasn’t very smart.” Jake smiled.</p><p>“Come on, can she really be that stupid?” I cracked. “After everything this guy did?”</p><p>“Toxic masculinity at it’s finest!” Elle huffed. “Whoever wrote this is probably into BDSM.”</p><p>“That’s insensitive to BDSM!” I cracked.</p><p>The scene cut to the golden interior of Manhattan’s most famous train station with it’s painfully familiar clocks dominating the screen while a cheesy song started rolling in the background.</p><p>“Oh my God, are they doing a kissing scene at Grand Central? Turn it off! It’s burning my eyes!” Elle screamed.</p><p>“I agree with her! Turn it off, please!” I joined.</p><p>Peter and Jake started to laugh out loud, Jake grabbed a remote and finally put an end to our misery.</p><p>“I’m never watching a chick flick again.” Peter said, breaking nearly a minute of silence.</p><p>“You know, the douchebag kinda looked like Liam...” Elle mentioned.</p><p>“Liam?” Jake asked, shifting his eyes from Elle to me, “<em>That</em> Liam?</p><p>Elle gave me a questioning look, trying to deduce how much Jake knew about my prior history with him. I gave her a barely noticeable negative head shake and smiled back at Jake.</p><p>“Yeah,” I said. “But I don’t think he looks like him at all.”</p><p>“Umm... And so you’ve met Liam, Jake?” Elle asked, fluttering with her lashes and giving him a creepy half-smirk.</p><p>I rolled my eyes at how smooth that went.</p><p>“I think I had a pleasure the other day, yes.” Jake answered, glancing at me, “Not the most pleasant character, I have to say.”</p><p>The air in the room has gotten heavier and I started missing the movie.</p><p>“Dyl didn’t really tell me much about that guy. What’s his last name?”</p><p>“Can we just-”</p><p>“Henderson.” Elle blabbed, forcing me to make a face at her, which she ignored.</p><p>Speaking of the faces, Jake’s face changed as he heard her answer. He looked puzzled for a brief moment.</p><p>“Is he related to Hank Henderson by any chance?” Jake asked, but before any of us had a chance to answer, added, “I thought his face looked familiar...”</p><p>“You know his father?” I asked.</p><p>“No, uh... But my dad does. It’s just uh... business stuff.”</p><p>This seemingly random coincidence have eliminated Jake’s fervor to gather further intel like a bucket of icy water. He stopped asking questions about Liam altogether and attended to Elle who went picking on his shelves, commenting on the trophies and cups he had collected for professional swimming and boxing. I got curious about the sudden change in his mood. He obviously recognized Liam, maybe he didn’t know him in person, but whatever he did know seemed to have stopped him dead in his tracks. I knew my boyfriend pretty well, he was looking for an opening to find out more about him ever since the day Liam showed his face at the parking lot. Jake was cautiously getting back and forth to this conversation, trying to pry more details out of me and he wouldn’t have missed on a opportunity to get that information, especially from Elle who he knew wouldn’t stop talking. Something was wrong about it, but I couldn’t quite wrap my finger around what exactly.</p><p>Elle made a few greasy jokes connecting Jake’s boxing past and sex, winking at me and causing a stray of awkward laughter in the room. She and Peter have soon left, leaving me alone with Jake. It was pretty late, but I wasn’t leaving him to clean up the mess alone, so I called mom and told her I’ll be staying with him tonight.</p><p>“Oh, finally!” she moaned in the phone. “Don’t forget about condoms!”</p><p>“Good night to you too, mom. Love you,” I hissed through my teeth, blushing heavily and increasing water pressure at the sink hoping to cover her indecencies with splashing sounds.</p><p>“I’m so proud of you baby-” she had a chance to murmur before I hung up.</p><p>When Jake and I began dating, I had just turned 17. He was a college freshman and was three years older than me. We took it slowly. Naturally, being as responsible as he was, he wouldn’t push me when it came to sex. Of course we fooled around and there were a few close calls, but in general we kept it PG-13. I once googled the age of consent for our state, but the rules on this were too messy and I couldn’t really understand it. In any case, the last thing I wanted was to put his future at risk, so we both decided to wait until I was 18.</p><p>Well, it just so happened that my 18th birthday was exactly in two weeks. Somehow, having it so close made both of us climb walls in anticipation. My teenage hormones were acting up and it was getting harder and harder to stay focused with him around. Staying alone together definitely wasn’t a good idea...</p><p>“Mmmph...” I moaned through the kiss twenty minutes later, as we rolled over on the couch, making out.</p><p>Feeling Jake’s weight on top of me was amazing, his hands travelled down my back and got underneath the shirt, stroking my lower abdomen and arching spine. He pulled my shirt off and got rid of his own, rising above me with a hungry look in his eyes.</p><p>“Fuck, this is unfair...” I moaned, eyeing his torso, “You look like you’re photoshopped...”</p><p>He smirked and shut me up by crushing his lips against mine, kissing me with hunger and lust, forcing me to wrap my arms and legs around him. He got hard, his dick was poking me in the thigh through our jeans and I groaned, sliding my hand down his lower back, feeling his muscles, the warmth of his skin, slipping my fingers under his belt and onto the mounds of his ass.</p><p>“You’re driving me crazy...” Jake groaned, showering my neck with kisses and forcing me to lose my breath.</p><p>Our foul game was rapidly approaching the point of no return, but neither of us wanted to stop. It took me all my will to gently push him off me, he got the hint and rubbed his face to try and come out of the frenzy. I hugged him and we got comfortable on the couch, turned the TV back on and watched a nice movie on HBO.</p><p>Somehow, the fatigue snuck up on me and I didn’t notice how I fell asleep. I woke up briefly when Jake carried me to the bed, but I was out again before the back of my head hit the pillow.</p><p>
  <em>I felt confused as bright sunlight blinded my eyes. Squinting, I tried to adjust to it. Warm summer wind breezed over my naked chest and abdomen, tickling my legs. I was laying on the sand, looking at the blue sky and hearing the water just a few feet away. Birds were chirping, someone was laughing nearby. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Are you coming?” I heard, “Come on, you have to take a swim!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I groaned and sat up, feeling burning hot sand making its way into the cleft between my butt cheeks. I was just relaxing, did he really have to pull me back to the lake? I took off my glasses and embraced the blurriness of my surroundings, standing up and heading towards the water. I couldn’t see much details, but I didn’t really have to. I swam towards his silhouette and heard his laughter getting louder, until his face appeared in front of me and everything cleared up, as though somebody put glasses back on me. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>A handsome 16-year old boy seductively bit his lip and smiled at me, “Wanna take a dive?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>My heart skipped a beat. Sunlight reflected off his wet skin and made his green eyes dazzle. Without waiting for my approval, he dove underneath, wrapped his strong arms around my belly and pulled me down. We started wrestling under water, hands sliding all over each other, legs intertwined. We must’ve been in that lake for an hour, and I don’t remember ever feeling happier in my life. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Ahh shoot...” I groaned, stepping on something sharp. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What is it?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Nothing, it’s just... Ahh!” I failed to reassure him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He helped me out of the lake and we saw a big shard of broken glass lodged into the sole of my foot. I panicked and pulled it out, causing blood to pour out of the wound. Liam quickly took his shirt and tore it in strips, wrapping it tightly around my foot to bandage it. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Don’t worry Dyl, it’s nothing we can’t handle,” he smiled, tightening the dressing and wiping his bloody hands on his shorts. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He picked up my glasses and blew on them to let the sand off. He crawled towards me and gently slid them on my temples. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Barb the librarian is back,” he joked.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t bear my weight on the foot. Seeing this, he made me climb on his back and carried me out of the beach, ignoring the looks from bystanders.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You’re okay back there?” he asked.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I think so...” I replied, hugging him tightly. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I covered my eyes from the brightness of the sun and suddenly, everything was gone. Gone were my summer, my cut foot, my lake. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>My Liam.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I freaked out. It was dark, I was alone, I was scared and I missed him. Where did he go? </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Liam?” I called out. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Nothing. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>An overwhelming dread filled me up to my bones, I was trapped somewhere dark and cold, and the only thing that kept me warm was the memory of his face.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Liam...” I moaned, crying. “Liam!”</em>
</p><p>“Liam...” I exhaled, waking up.</p><p>My heart was pounding, I was covered in cold sweat, the aftertaste of the nightmare resounding in my head. Jake was shaking my shoulders to wake me up, closely studying my face. I swallowed painfully, regaining consciousness and trying my best not to break down in tears.</p><p>“I... I’m sorry...” I exhaled.</p><p>“What did he do?” Jake asked, all of a sudden.</p><p>I gave him a questioning look.</p><p>“Liam,” he clarified. “What the fuck did he do?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter Six</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“So what happened next?” Jake asked, brushing my hair with the palm of his hand.</p><p>I hugged him tightly and pressed my ear to his chest. His calm, steady breathing was soothing and I felt warm in his embrace.</p><p>“Nothing, he just...” I exhaled, “He just drove away. I don’t know what happened last week, where he’s been or what he did. Elle heard he was in a car accident, but I don’t really care, to be honest.”</p><p>“Did he try to contact you after that?”</p><p>“No. I’d like to think I’ve made myself clear. Hopefully he got a clue.”</p><p>“I see...”</p><p>“You know what was most infuriating?” I asked, “He looked so surprised when I told him about the scar and everything. It’s like he’s been living in a bubble, he didn’t even know how much shit he did to me. As if I wasn’t important enough to keep in his mind, to make sure he hasn’t killed me. What was he counting on, coming up to me like this? Did he really expect me to forgive him?”</p><p>Jake took a deep breath and hugged me tighter. He kissed me in the forehead and said, “You don’t owe him anything, Dylan.”</p><p>I felt soft chills running down my spine as his arms wrapped me. He smelled so nice, his skin was soft and I sensed his heartbeat pulsating against my ear through the warmth of his skin. I lifted my chin and carefully studied his face. He was stunningly handsome, especially in the moonlight. I didn’t know what I did to deserve someone so amazing to actually like me. I’m pretty sure I smiled at him like a stupid puppy, but I wasn’t the only one doing it at the moment.</p><p>“I feel sorry for this guy,” Jake uttered wistfully.</p><p>I looked at him in amusement.</p><p>“Even though I hate him for what he did to you, I have to say I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.”</p><p>“Why?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.</p><p>“He must’ve realized what he lost.” Jake hurried to explain, smiling at me. “I don’t expect you to understand. You don’t see what I see, Dylan. There aren’t many people around that are like you. You’re pure and deep. You’re beautiful, and not just on the outside. It’s very rare. This guy is a petty loser and I bet he’s chewing on his lips right now. Selfishly, I’m glad he’ll never get you back.”</p><p>Picking on my confused look, he added, “I’m assuming he’s the guy that you had a crush on?”</p><p>“No.” I blurted out on autopilot, before catching my lies, “Never. Screw him, I liked someone else.”</p><p>“Okay-okay, sorry. I just assumed... You were close and you mentioned the other guy was straight.”</p><p>“It’s alright, but it wasn’t him. Liam and I were just friends.” I kept lying, thanking the night for providing a cover to my reddening face.</p><p>I pretended to yawn and tucked myself in Jacob’s armpit.</p><p>“I love you...” he exhaled barely audibly, brushing my hair as I was falling asleep.</p><p>Even a hopeless bookworm such as myself wasn’t particularly thrilled at the prospect of living through a Monday. It was the universally hated day for a reason, and I definitely concurred with that statement. The only person who consistently managed to uplift my moods at the dawn of a school week was Elle - more frequently than not, her primary method at doing so revolved around a fresh gossip.</p><p>Jason Wu was a son of a hot shot business executive in Boston office of a certain famous pharmaceutical company. During his son’s freshman year, Jason’s daddy had an affair with their 19-year old house maid, causing a big scandal in the media after it leaked. Turned out, Mrs. Wu spotted young Vanessa parading around the house in jewelries identical to her own. She hired a private investigator to confirm her suspicions, but the sleazy guy sold compromising photos to yellow press, outing the story. Apparently, creativity in making jewelry purchases wasn’t amongst Mr. Wu’s strongest traits, which wasn’t to say that he lacked resourcefulness or imagination with his sexual escapades. School crowd loved the scandal, I remember how Jason had suddenly and very briefly turned into a hot topic. He appreciated his five minutes of fame and it just so happened that further rumors about his father’s tempestuous sex life have permeated his high school journey, mostly because Jason actively spread those rumors himself. Throughout his son’s sophomore and junior years, horny Mr. Wu had slept with his many secretaries, tennis instructors and even his younger daughter’s private tutor. Having married into a very wealthy and traditional Chinese family at a sensibly young age, poor Mr. Wu had carelessly signed a prenuptial agreement which read that in case of divorce he’ll lose all of his estates to his wife. As a result, whenever Mrs. Wu caught her husband red handed, shifty Mr. Wu would take her to lavish resorts to ‘patch things up’, creating openings for parties, that, as Jason had learned, aided his popularity. Over the years, Mr. Wu’s infidelities have turned into a code word for upcoming events at Wu’s residence. Up until recently, I wasn’t a part of the school’s inner circle to know about all of this, but Elle enlightened me as we were stretching our legs at the railings by the running tracks.</p><p>Not sure how I felt about attending a party full of drunk teenagers, but by Saturday the dread of terrible retribution from Elle trumped my concerns and I decided to stay true to my word. Jake picked me up in the evening and we headed to Jason’s house.</p><p>“You look fantastic. I have to be very careful,” he complimented, forcing me to blush like Renee Zellweger.</p><p>“Thank you. You don’t look too bad yourself,” I came back.</p><p>We parked at the premises of their enormous residence and walked uphill for what felt like forever, before meeting Peter and Elle at the entrance. I looked around the house and lost my breath for a second. I’ve been to big houses before - Liam’s place, for instance, was a three-story mansion which Emma constantly complained about, because there was no way to keep it clean and tidy all the time. All the extra space wasn’t really necessary and empty rooms have collected dust on the best of days. Shanice and Reginald adhered to the same opinions - despite having every opportunity to live in a manor, they kept their two-story house and even pondered to sell it now that their kids have moved out.</p><p>That was not the case with Mr. and Mrs. Wu, however. Their residence was gargantuan, the modern white stone finish on the facade contrasted with traditional Xie-Shan style rooftops, beautiful statues and ornaments with intricate patterns decorated balconies and walls, the entire perimeter of their estate was lined with ornamental shrubs and flowers. A huge illuminated fountain flaunted at the center of the driveway, blocking the view on the entrance at the main wing.</p><p>“He must have a very small penis,” Elle muttered, gasping at the surroundings.</p><p>“Let’s get inside.” Pete offered, grabbing her hand.</p><p>“Just look at this, Jesus...” she exhaled, “Why do they have so many lights on, it’s not even Christmas.”</p><p>Frankly speaking, such an overt display of money and power made me feel uneasy. I glanced at Jake. However rich Jason Wu’s family was, I suspected that the wealth of the guy standing next to me was far superior to theirs, which technically meant that my boyfriend could own a house like this. I shrugged briefly at ridiculousness of this thought. Somehow, I just knew he will never throw money on bullshit like this.</p><p>“You okay?” he asked, squeezing my hand.</p><p>“Yeah, I’m just... Not used to this stuff.” I replied.</p><p>“I think she’s right,” he smirked, nodding toward Elle who walked in front of us. “Someone’s compensating.”</p><p>“Stop making fun of his penis, you little brat...” I chuckled.</p><p>“Not as little as Mr. Wu.” he whispered in my ear.</p><p>Upon entering a dimply lit foyer we were greeted by a loud music and smoke guns, spewing vapor on the floor, with colorful lights beaming down from a pair of rotating laser protectors on the ceiling.</p><p>“Is this what it feels like to be in a night club?” I asked loudly, wincing at the scene.</p><p>Jake chuckled in response to my silly question, leaned in and gave me a tickling kiss on the cheek.</p><p>Elle’s eyes were all over the place, Pete tried to keep her enthusiasm contained, but eventually relaxed and went with the flow. Coming in, I was worried that it will be embarrassingly obvious we don’t belong with the cool kids, but we’ve met a few familiar faces from school and in general didn’t really feel uninvited. People were coming up to us, offering drinks and making small talk, mostly shouting through obnoxiously loud music. Small groups of people filled up the kitchen and a dining area, with occasional folks strolling through hallways and peeking in different rooms, exploring expensive surroundings. I’ve introduced Jake to several of our classmates before Elle snatched me in the direction of a fancy looking diner table, catered with snacks and a variety of alcoholic beverages.</p><p>“Is this even legal?” I yelled.</p><p>“Yes!” Elle shouted back, grabbing a red plastic cup and pouring unlabeled red punch into it. “Everything’s legal when you’re rich!”</p><p>She shoved the cup in my face and demanded me to drink it. I laughed at the silliness of her request - I’ve never tried alcohol in my life, did it look like I was stupid enough to part with millions of my brain cells by the morning?</p><p>“Drink it!” she demanded.</p><p>“No!”</p><p>“Do it!”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Because I said so!” she mandated, shaking her finger at my face.</p><p>I took the cup from her hand and smelled the red drink. I really didn’t know what people found so amusing in alcohol, it smelled horrific, despite being laced with a crappy strawberry syrup.</p><p>“You’ll have to watch me!” I warned.</p><p>“You’re safe with me, baby!” she replied. “I’m the most responsible adult in the room!”</p><p>Elle didn’t sound very convincing. I exhaled sharply and drank disgusting potion, squinting at the taste.</p><p>“Yep, tastes just as shitty as it smells...” I though out loud, searching for a water to rinse my palate.</p><p>Twenty minutes later I was laughing out of my ass, dancing in the center of the crowd, singing along the song I’ve never heard before. Jake remained close by, dancing with me and smiling at my drunk face.</p><p>I, for once, felt easy and light. Heavy thoughts and constant rumination tuned out to a quiet background static, I opened up to the music and I was able to relax and enjoy myself. I noticed Sebastian, he was standing in the corner of the room, chatting with Abby. For some reason he was stealing glances at Jake and I, which I found funny, recalling how he doubted whether or not I actually had a boyfriend. Instead of a rational approach at ignoring his looks, I gave him a smile, grabbed Jake and slapped a smooch on his lips to make my prior statements clear.</p><p>Was it a very infantile behavior on my part? Maybe. Did I give a fuck? Absolutely not.</p><p>Jake liked the kiss and grabbed me in his arms, swirling me around on the dance floor. I laughed through the kiss as his fingers rubbed against my ribs.</p><p>“You’re drunk!” he shouted, chuckling at my blushed physiognomy.</p><p>“I know! Isn’t that awesome?!”</p><p>Very soon, Elle stole me from Jake and we went on dancing like a pair of headless chickens. By the end of it, our exhausted bodies crashed on the only available double seat at the nearest sofa.</p><p>“Look who just walked in!” Elle exclaimed, pointing forward.</p><p>At the tip of her finger was the sweetest couple of Montgomery High - Liam Henderson and Jessica What’s-Her-Last Name. Liam’s current First Lady was just as big of a bitch as all of her predecessors. She was a carbon copy of Kylie Jenner - the resemblance was seriously uncanny. The girl was ruthless, spoiled and manipulative, unlike most of his prior confidants she managed to keep the king by her side the longest - I could only imagine all her countless talents in bed. Naturally, she filled every single checkbox in Liam’s list - she was gorgeous and sexy, she was rich and popular and wildly desired by other guys. But perhaps most importantly, she was a raging narcissist with a borderline personality disorder, which always kept him interested, because lets face it - Liam Henderson wasn’t keen on dating good girls.</p><p>To my annoyance, their entrance was such a big deal that whoever was running the music had stopped it to announce their arrival. I rolled my eyes at this, but in the sudden deafening silence I was able to focus enough to notice painfully disinterested look on Liam’s face. He was wearing a dark green pullover with a light gray shirt underneath, as well as a pair of shabby jeans. Jess was wearing what Elle called a plastic-wrap dress, the bottom edges of which were barely covering her ass.</p><p>“Jesus Christ, I can see her snatch from up here!” Elle shouted, prompting both of us to break into laughter.</p><p>We must’ve laughed too loud, because the next thing I knew - Liam’s eyes were on us. Jess glared at us next, pursing her lips in irritation and leaning to Liam’s shoulder to whisper something in his ear. Interestingly, in response to whatever she told him, he dismissively waved his hand at her face and walked towards the table with the drinks, leaving his girlfriend standing there with a surprised look on her face.</p><p>“Troubles in paradise?” Elle asked.</p><p>“Who gives a shit?” I asked. “Let’s go dance!”</p><p>Elle and I morphed back into the crowd, joining our dates. I almost had to fight a girl that glued herself to Jacob on the dance floor.</p><p>“Thanks for saving me.”</p><p>“Anytime,” I grinned.</p><p>Whether it was an alcohol wearing out, or the fact that the space was getting too crowded, at some point I felt that eerie restlessness you get when too many eyes are staring at you. The source of this was standing a few feet away, as it turned out. He stood there, squeezing a red plastic cup in his hand, gazing at me and Jake with his angry green eyes. I saw muscles flexing on his jaw, as he clenched his teeth and furrowed his thick eyebrows. I smiled at him and did the exact same thing I did to Sebastian earlier, candidly and proudly kissing my boyfriend in front of him. By the time our lips parted, Liam was nowhere to be found. I felt nice, seeing that I finally discovered a good way of getting rid of the asshole.</p><p>The relief didn’t last long, however. At some point I felt extremely dry in my mouth and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. I felt like I was inside a subway train at a peak hour, grinding through a pile of bodies on my way out of the room.</p><p>As I stepped out, I realized how hot it must’ve been inside. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and breathed in full lungs of fresh air. Kitchen wasn’t nearly as crowded, I rinsed my cup, filled it with a cold tap water and drank in thirst, only to choke on the last sip, as someone’s hand landed on my shoulder.</p><p>“What are you doing here?” an annoyingly familiar voice called out from behind.</p><p>Turning around, I immediately rocked back from how uncomfortably close he stood to me. In fact, he was only an inch away, with his massive 6’5” frame throwing shadow from ceiling lights on me.</p><p>I rubbed my eyes and chuckled, for no particular reason.</p><p>“You shouldn’t be here,” Liam said, staring me down with his eyes.</p><p>It was super awkward trying to maintain eye contact with him this close, mainly because it felt weird cranking up my neck at such angle.</p><p>“Uh-huh. Fuck you too,” I replied, twisting to the side in an attempt to escape his company.</p><p>He blocked my way with his arm and pushed forward, pressing me into the marble countertop with his hips. Even my considerably intoxicated brain registered it as weird.</p><p>“Ever heard of personal space?” I asked.</p><p>He didn’t reply. I felt uncomfortable, his groin was basically grinding against my lower abdomen.</p><p>“What do you want?” I asked.</p><p>“I want to talk,” he said.</p><p>“We have nothing to talk about.”</p><p>“Please.”</p><p>I sighed, picked up a cup of someone’s leftover vodka-martini on my left and drank it, immediately scrunching at its disgusting taste.</p><p>“Sure,” I blurted out. “Anything for you.”</p><p>He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the kitchen. I tried to free my hand from his grasp, but he held me firmly and I just gave up, following him as he lead us down the hallway. It was pretty dark and foggy, people around were drunk and the visibility was terrible, yet we still had a few prying eyes on us. Undoubtedly, Liam Henderson and I were an odd pair to witness walking around holding hands. He tried to get us in the room at the end of the hallway, but it was occupied by a half-naked couple in the midst of a steamy make out session. Irritated Liam frowned at the scene and yanked me towards next door.</p><p>We happened to stumble across what looked like an empty billiard room. As soon as we got in, he made sure we were alone and closed the door behind us. I liked the surroundings and took a stroll around the pool table. Its edges were lined with red oak, I brushed my fingers on the green velvety cloth overlying cold marble top. There was a separate stand with balls and cues at the wall, the room smelled of wood and had a dim warm lighting to complement the setup. The pockets at the professional pool table were much more narrow compared to the ones regular pool tables had. This one was also taller. Seeing this room reminded me of dad, he was an avid pool player, loved to disappear in bars with his friends when I was little, back when life was a little simpler.</p><p>For the first time in my life I was discovering the phases of alcohol intoxication. In my particular scenario, light mood and disinhibition came first, followed by a phase of dancing monkey and now I was feeling tired and overall only half-awake.</p><p>“So what now? You got us here, we’re all alone.” I yawned, stretching in fatigue.</p><p>He stepped closer and I chuckled at how he fancied physical proximity to me this particular evening. I hopped on the edge of the billiard table so that we end up at the same height.</p><p>“Can you step back? You have a very bad breath, I don’t want to vomit on your shoes.” I lied.</p><p>He smiled, flashing his big white teeth at me. I haven’t seen him smile in a while. Back when we used to be friends, he would laugh about everything, perhaps a bit more than a normal person would. But these days, gloomy and pompous seriousness was the only expression on Liam Henderson’s face. I would assume this was one of the things people considered cool about him, but I was convinced that only Edward Cullen was able to pull this off and not look like a complete idiot.</p><p>“I see that you’ve met someone,” he said.</p><p>“You’re very observant.”</p><p>I couldn’t hold a stupid grin. What the fuck was he doing?</p><p>“What do you want?” I asked.</p><p>He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down, licking his lips in a pathetic attempt to appear anxious.</p><p>“I was...” he sniffled, speaking timidly, “I was thinking about what you’ve told me the other night.”</p><p>“Okay, cool.” I nodded. “I don’t care.”</p><p>“I’m sorry.”</p><p>“I really don’t care,” I yawned.</p><p>He shifted from foot to foot, pulled his hands out of pockets and clenched his fists. To my inebriated eyes his behavior looked very funny and I giggled at his reaction to my words.</p><p>“Dylan, I didn’t know,” he said quietly. “I didn’t know about... About the...”</p><p>He held out his hand and his shaking fingers pressed against my stomach. In other circumstances he might’ve seemed sincere, but boy, oh boy what a poor choice of words did he make.</p><p>“Do you want me to repeat myself?” I asked, grabbing his arm and doing my best to twist it away. “I fucking hate you, you god damned motherfucker.”</p><p>His eyes snapped back at me, as if I’d just slapped him.</p><p>“You didn’t know.” I repeated really to myself more than to him. “You didn’t fucking know...”</p><p>I began laughing and he bit his lip. God, this guy acted better than DiCaprio in Revenant.</p><p>“Does that suppose to make me feel better?” I asked.</p><p>“I don’t know...” he whispered.</p><p>“Do you even hear yourself?” I asked. “You just fucking told me that I’m so worthless that you didn’t even bother remembering how you used to beat me to death.”</p><p>“No, I...”</p><p>“Liam, just shut up.” I said firmly, to capture his attention. “Don’t bother me. I’m happy for once, I really am.”</p><p>His eyes got red and sparkled in dim light.</p><p>“All I need to stay happy is for you to keep your fucking distance,” I finished.</p><p>Liam swallowed and blew loudly through inflated cheeks. He appeared as though he was trying to fight off tears. I tried to assume for a second that he was, in fact, sincere. The possibility that my words really caused him so much pain, however, seemed too good to be true.</p><p>“We’re done here.” I said, pushing up against the wooden edge of the table, ready to jump on the floor.</p><p>“No,” Liam objected, pressing his hand against my chest to keep me seated. “We’re not done.”</p><p>“You’re wrong, we’re done. Let me go.”</p><p>“Hear me out.”</p><p>“I already did, you said you didn’t know. So unless you have an evil twin that did all that instead, you’re wasting your time.”</p><p>“Do you really hate me that much?” he asked. “So much that there’s nothing I can do?”</p><p>“Does that surprise you?”</p><p>“I don’t believe it,” he dared.</p><p>“You better believe it. Why would I forgive you?” I asked, smiling at his baseless arrogance.</p><p>“Because you used to love me.”</p><p>I stopped breathing. The alcoholic fog that kept my mind enveloped in a haze evaporated in a matter of seconds, and the gravity of his sentence hit me like a brick wall.</p><p>
  <em>What? Was that a joke? </em>
</p><p>There was no way he knew. Absolutely no way.</p><p>“In your dreams.” I answered after too big of a pause for him to buy my lies.</p><p>He didn’t even wince.</p><p>“Dylan, I know,” he said. “I always knew.”</p><p>“Really?” I asked, trying so sound sarcastic. “What makes you so sure?”</p><p>“I’m not stupid, Dylan.” he said. “I’m sorry. Emma talked to me about this. She asked to be gentle with you, to not break your heart.”</p><p>I sucked in full lungs of air and held my breath tightly. Jesus Christ. His mother knew about this. Did Helen tell her? Did they always know? Was it so obvious?</p><p>It wasn’t happening, it wasn’t fucking happening...</p><p>I felt the pounding in my chest, heart threatening to burst out of it. I felt dizzy, I wanted to vanish into thin air, to escape that room and the gaze of his green eyes.</p><p>“Let me go.” I growled through my teeth.</p><p>“You’re not going anywhere.” he whispered.</p><p>I felt hot, the room turned into a smoldering pot of melting lava, suffocating the hell out of me. As sweat perspired off my face, I unwillingly drew a few sharp breaths, giving away my nervousness.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he said. “You have no idea, Dylan...”</p><p>I was paralyzed, unable to talk or move at all, forced to sit there and listen to him.</p><p>“I can’t sleep,” he spoke. “Can’t stop thinking about all the things I’ve done to you. It’s eating at me, it’s killing me to know that I hurt you so much...”</p><p>He stepped in closer and his hand found its way back to my stomach. I shuddered in a mix of conflicting emotions, amongst which the shame dominated.</p><p>He knew. All these years, he knew I loved him...</p><p>I snuffled, losing the grip on self-control and eventually sobbed, letting hot tears roll down both of my cheeks.</p><p>“I don’t expect you to forgive me so easily,” he said, piercing me with his deep green eyes. “I’m a fucking monster, I know I broke your heart.”</p><p>“You...-” I hissed, trying to soothe the pain in my throat.</p><p>“But you will forgive me,” he breathed out. “Because you’re mine.”</p><p>I was losing myself hearing his disgusting fucking speech. He ravished in that knowledge, savoring this notion that I had feelings for him in the past. Did he really think I still loved him? Was he really that much of a fool? Did he truly believe that I felt anything but disdain for him?</p><p>“That guy you’re dating,” he said, pointing at the door, “He’s not who you think he is.”</p><p>I clenched my teeth. What was he talking about?</p><p>“He’s not safe to be around,” he added.</p><p>“Really?...” I asked with an angry half-smirk that squeezed through my tightened jaw. “At least he didn’t rupture my organs yet.”</p><p>Liam pursed his lips in guilt. He pressed his body against mine, forcing my thighs to spread apart on his waist. His hand slipped on my lower back, pulling me closer to him. He pressed his forehead into mine and I felt his warm breath on my cheek.</p><p>What the fuck was he doing?</p><p>“I was such a fool.” he exhaled. “So fucking blind...”</p><p>“What the fu-”</p><p>“You’re mine...” he whispered.</p><p>In the next moment, the time came to a full stop. As dubious as it sounds, it felt as though I experienced things in slow motion. Our lips touched and I trembled in response, only to get pulled in closer. It would seem that I’d have one billion thoughts rushing through my mind, but there was nothing. Only the feeling. The smell of his breath, the brush of his hand sliding on the side of my neck, fingers slipping under my hair, as he tilted his head and pressed his lips firmly into mine, ushering me into a kiss.</p><p>
  <em>What’s happening? </em>
</p><p>For a brief moment Liam separated from me, but only to kiss me deeper the next second. His full lips have enveloped mine, forcing them to part, to take on the shape of his own. His large teeth tapped lightly against mine, his tongue made its way inside my mouth and rubbed onto my own. He pulled me closer, holding me in both arms, groaning through the kiss.</p><p>
  <em>Did I pass out? Am I hallucinating? Is it alcohol?</em>
</p><p>It couldn’t be. I could taste him, I felt the wetness of his mouth. His lips slid off on my cheeks, sucking on mine, rolling them between his teeth, biting them. He licked my gums, wielding his tongue into the deepest crevices of my mouth.</p><p>My heart was fluttering, hands were shaking, I couldn’t draw a breath, perplexed and unable to move. I sat there, stunned, bewildered and shocked out of my existence, as Liam fucking Henderson kissed me, loading my nostrils with the smell of his cologne, scratching my flushed cheeks into a crimson shade with his bristle, throwing me in sweat.</p><p>At the precipice of this bizarre moment, the door behind my back creaked open, and whoever walked in on us gasped in shock.<br/><br/></p><p>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter Seven</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When I was twelve, I narrowly escaped death when a piece of a rooftop fell off the building and landed inches away from me on the sidewalk. What were the chances? I didn’t know whether to consider myself lucky or not, but the event imprinted on my memory forever. My life had a handful of other strange occurrences, but nothing really stood out in comparison to a bizarre and out-of-nowhere french kiss that Liam Henderson decided to plant upon my 17-year old lips. It was an epiphany of weird, something so fundamentally wrong that it crossed all the wires in my inebriated brain, forcing it to shut down most of its higher function.</p><p>Why did he do it? Was it a stupid prank, a dare? What made him think that he had a right to do this to me?</p><p>Even when the door opened and we both heard a stranger draw a sharp breath at the scene, Liam refused to take his lips off mine. He held me firmly in place, pressing his body onto mine, caressing my neck with his fingers, fondling my wet lips in his mouth, kissing me with hunger.</p><p>I couldn’t move, couldn’t turn around, all I managed to do was to open my eyes and see him stare daggers at the intruder. Alcohol boiled in my veins, making everything seem surreal and out of touch. His soft lips slid on my cheeks, he showered my neck with kisses, ran his tongue in the crevices above clavicle, sliding up to the ear, forcing me to unwillingly lose my breath in excitement.</p><p>
  <em>No. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>No! What the fuck!</em>
</p><p>His hands made their way down my waist, hips rubbed onto mine as he kept ravishing me. I clenched my fists tightly, scraping the remnants of my will to push him away, but failing in the process.</p><p>“Dylan...” I heard a voice behind my back.</p><p>I jerked in place and twisted my neck, finally facing the person standing in the doorway, watching us.</p><p>“Fuck...” I exhaled, decisively pushing Liam away and jumping off the table.</p><p>The look on her face was all it took for me to sober up in an instance. Before I had a chance to say anything, Elle darted back and ran off.</p><p>“Elle, no! Wait!” I screamed.</p><p>I was about to chase her, but the obnoxious asshole grabbed my hand and pulled me back into his arms. I kicked him in the chest, but he ignored the punch.</p><p>“You motherfucker, let me go!” I glared in rage, fighting him.</p><p>Liam burrowed his face into the angle of my neck, instinctively causing me to moan. I couldn’t even begin to describe the mess happening in my head. It was a boiling pit of anger, lust and confusion - a gut-wrenching combination I’ve never experienced before. The intoxicating scent of his body was driving me insane, his dark hair brushed against my cheek, arms travelled across my spine, squeezing my skin, making my back arch to meet the curve of his slanting posture. His lips found mine again and he devoured me with a groan. I felt powerless, unable, but worst of all, <em>unwilling</em> to stop him.</p><p>“Mmph...” he moaned.</p><p>He cupped my jaw in his palm and leaned even lower, deepening the kiss, forcing me to yield to him and reciprocate. Losing balance, I wrapped my arms around his back and he used this to his leverage, slamming me against the edge of the table, forcing our bodies to grind against each other.</p><p>My heart skipped a beat as I felt sharp pain in my stomach - the memory of his enraged face swinging above mine as he senselessly beat me flashed in front of my eyes, knocking me back into reality. I shut my lips and pushed Liam away, swiveling from under his embrace. I was over-breathing, frantically wiping his spit off my lips, writhing in confusion and disgust.</p><p>“Dylan...” he exhaled with a raspy voice.</p><p>He looked disoriented and attempted to once again close in on me.</p><p>“Don’t fucking touch me!” I hissed, kicking him in the groin with my knee.</p><p>He squealed in pain and crumbled on the floor, bending in half.</p><p>I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The rollercoaster of conflicting emotions has sucked me out dry, draining every last bit of strength, leaving me with hollow emptiness in the chest.</p><p>
  <em>Why did he fucking do this to me? What could he possibly achieve by this? </em>
</p><p>My cheeks burned red, hot tears rolled up on my eyes, blurring everything. I covered my face in shame, but managed to hold them. There was no fucking way he was going to make me cry again! Seeing this, Liam crawled towards me on his knees.</p><p>“Dylan-”</p><p>“No!” I cut though tears, stepping back.</p><p>I wiped my eyes and felt grittiness from dislodged contacts. I breathed fast and hard, finally regaining control, lifting the veil of insane fuckery that just transpired between us in this god damned room.</p><p>Elle.</p><p>I had to find Elle. I had to explain myself, despite having zero insight on how to explain something so royally fucked up.</p><p>I stormed out of the room, slamming the door on my way out. The pile of dancing bodies turned into a distorted blur, the deafening sound of music was pounding in my ears as I navigated through the sickening crowd of drunk teens, looking for my best friend. Some folks have followed me with concerned looks witnessing distress on my face, but I had no time or energy to pay any attention to them.</p><p>I reached the dining room and saw Peter, standing beside the fireplace with a phone in his hand.</p><p>“Pete, have you seen Elle?” I asked anxiously.</p><p>“Yeah, she went outside. Why? What happened?” he wondered.</p><p>Choosing not to answer his question I rushed towards the exit, stumbling on the carpet and bumping into a few people on my way. To my besetment, Liam showed up at the opposite end of the room, looking flushed and agitated. He scanned the dance floor, searching for me. Around the same time, I saw Jake waving at me from the other corner, causing me to flinch in shame. My stomach hurled at the thought of what I did, I couldn’t stand to even look his way. I needed Elle, I needed her to shake me back into my senses, to help me deal with all of this. I needed to make sure that the look she gave me was gone, that she knew it wasn’t my fault.</p><p>Because it wasn’t my fault.</p><p>
  <em>It wasn’t.</em>
</p><p>The room was spinning, both Jake and Liam spotted me and now made their way towards me. I had nowhere to hide. The shame of seeing Jake felt terrible, but the electrifying hatred I felt for Liam threatened to set the entire place on fire. I wanted to reduce myself to a single point, to evaporate into nothing to escape the inevitable.</p><p>At that moment, only a miracle could help me, but what ended up happening was the opposite of that.</p><p>Suddenly, someone screamed at the center of the crowd. Several others joined in and the music abruptly stopped, clearing the voices of those in the middle. A few chilling wails broke the silence, infusing everyone with anxiety. I hurried towards the clearing center to find a person lying on the floor, unconscious. It was Angela - a scrawny girl that played tuba at the school orchestra. When she began seizing, a wave of whimpers and gasps engulfed the room. There was no one beside her, people just stood a few feet away and looked at her as if she was an exhibit at the museum. Some folks have pulled out their iPhones and started filming her, but nobody really bothered calling EMS.</p><p>I managed to fight off the panic that chained me for a moment. As my adrenaline kicked in, I became acutely aware that something needed to be done, fast. Brushing off the paralysis and not wasting time I rushed on the floor, took off my pullover and placed it under her head. Her arms and legs were shaking violently, her convulsions looked absolutely terrifying.</p><p>“Call 911!” I cried out.</p><p>Thankfully, by then Jacob made his way to the center of the crowd and immediately followed up on my request. Liam was also standing there, looking shocked and bewildered, just like most of the others.</p><p>I turned Angela to the side and brushed her hair, speaking softly into her ear, trying to check if she was conscious. She wasn’t. The seizure lasted less than a minute, but she didn’t wake up after the shaking stopped. I checked her pulse and breathing, looked at her pupils and peaked inside her mouth. She looked sweaty and pale, but I was unable to find any tell-tale signs of what caused this. I looked around through the crowd, searching for her friends.</p><p>“Kate!” I called to a petite, chubby brunette standing to my right, “Kate, right?”</p><p>“Y-yes!..” she stuttered in distress.</p><p>“Were you guys together?”</p><p>“Yes, we were dancing! We were just dancing and she started sweating, she said she was dizzy, and then she just...”</p><p>I gestured her to join me and she knelt on the floor.</p><p>“Did she take anything? Any drugs?” I asked, ensuring that nobody else heard me.</p><p>“No, no she’ll never! We’ll never!..”</p><p>“It’s okay, I just had to make sure,” I spoke. “Did she ever do this before?”</p><p>“No...”</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>“I... I don’t know, she never told me!”</p><p>“Did she have a purse or a bag? Can you pass it to me?” I asked.</p><p>“It’s in the car, I’ll go get it!”</p><p>Kate jumped up and ran away.</p><p>“The ambulance is on the way.” Jake updated.</p><p>“Thank you!” I exhaled, getting somewhat relieved.</p><p>Looking at Angela’s face, I was trying to do my best to think. Drugs could definitely cause a seizure, but I believed Kate, this probably wasn’t the case. Maybe she had a history of epilepsy? I was hoping to find some medications in her purse, anything that will give me a clue.</p><p>
  <em>They were dancing. Just dancing, and she dropped on the floor.</em>
</p><p>I inspected her arms, rolling up her sleeves to check for track marks. There was nothing. She was breathing shallowly, looked pale, sweat continued to perspire off her skin.</p><p>
  <em>Think. Think!</em>
</p><p>What else could induce seizures in a young girl? I tried to remember the internal medicine book I’ve read over the summer, but the damn alcohol shoved a huge stick up my brain, tampering with the thought process.</p><p>
  <em>Diaphoresis, paleness and dizziness, followed by a loss of consciousness and a seizure in a healthy teenage girl that was dancing at the party...</em>
</p><p>“Fuck!” I exclaimed in realization, shaking up several people in front of me.</p><p>I frantically undone buttons at the bottom of Angela’s shirt, exposing her belly. Illuminating her skin with the flash light off my phone I saw a few fading bruises and needle tracks below the umbilicus.</p><p>
  <em>Hypoglycemic seizure! Bingo!</em>
</p><p>“Somebody get me something sweet! Now!” I shouted.</p><p>“What?” a girl standing on my left asked skeptically, crossing her arms on the chest. “Why?”</p><p>“I think she’s a type 1 diabetic! I need sugar!”</p><p>“Type what?” she mocked with a chuckle.</p><p>“I’ll bring it from the kitchen!” the party’s host Jason stepped in.</p><p>I tried to shake Angela up, hoping she’ll perk up a bit to swallow the sweets, but she was completely blacked out. Jason returned with a handful of sugar cubes in his hands, I snatched one out, crushed it into smaller pieces and placed them under her tongue. I tried to sit her up and Liam squatted by my side to help, seeing how I struggled. He grabbed her under the armpits and sat her on the floor. Around the same time, Kate came back with Angela’s purse.</p><p>I took the bag and emptied it on the floor. Out poured a cherry lipstick and mascara, alongside countless other make up items, a chain of condoms and finally, several preloaded insulin pens with a red box, reading ‘Glucagon Emergency Kit’.</p><p>A stupid smile broke on my face moments before I grabbed glucagon and began preparing the injection. After loading the syringe, I pinched a skin fold at the side of Angela’s arm and injected her. Liam was holding her firmly in place, and I couldn’t escape the thought that this must’ve been the second body he groped without consent today.</p><p>Much to my surprise, within about a minute after glucagon injection, Angela started waking up. She opened her eyes and asked for water, but I got her an apple juice instead. Liam moved her to the sofa and I lingered behind to collect all of the stuff that came out of her purse. This must’ve been the moment when I finally relaxed, letting my overly excited brain to cool down for a bit. There I was, thinking that the crisis was over, hearing sounds of an ambulance pulling over at the driveway, when I lifted my eyes off the floor and froze in place.</p><p>The entire crowd was looking at me. Nobody gave a damn about the girl that just had a seizure - only Pete, Jacob and Kate surrounded her and Liam, trying to offer more help. Folks weren’t even concerned with flashing lights of emergency vehicle standing outside, shining through the windows. All of their eyes staring at me, their faces twisted in anxiety and unease, even fear. I recognized those stares, I got painfully familiar with them over the years. They were staring at the freak, someone who made them feel distraught and weirded out. To only think that I nearly forgot how this felt, that I dared to assume that there was a different role I now played in their preconceived set of expectations.</p><p>The pressure of their stares got unbearable. I felt hot, it was getting hard to breathe. I slowly stepped away towards the couch and dropped the purse on the cushion.</p><p>“Dylan?” Jake called. “Are you okay?”</p><p>He tried to reach me, but I jerked away from him like from a bare electric wire. They kept on staring at me, every single set of eyes fixed at me, like in a damned horror movie. I felt small, as though I was back in the high school, laying on the floor beside the lockers covered in blood, getting beaten to a pulp with the same faces staring me down, in the exact same way. My knees felt weak, I couldn’t swallow, getting short of breath as if somebody choked me.</p><p>“Dyl...” Jake whispered.</p><p>I didn’t let him finish, roughly pushing my way through a bunch of onlookers, cutting the crowd to get the hell out of that house. Back at the freshman year when the bullying started, I gave myself a promise that I won’t let them turn me into a monster. There was no way I was going to become a sad and angry person that tortures little animals or gets off on revenge fantasies involving guns. I was above this shit, never letting them get under my skin, never giving them an opening. This night they managed to strip me of that power, making me feel worthless. No matter what I did, in their eyes I will never be anything other than a freak.</p><p>I was in so much hurry getting out of that house, that I ended up unintentionally shoving a paramedic at the entrance. As I got out in front of the fountain, a chill breeze burned my lungs open, with pins and needles blazing my flushed cheeks. I shuddered, feeling goosebumps running down my spine. This was a terrible fucking night - it crashed and exploded in my face in every single way it could, leaving me only with emptiness and pain.</p><p>As I made my way across the driveway around the fountain, I heard a voice calling out to me, “Dylan, wait!”</p><p>I could tell she was following me from behind. I stopped dead in my tracks, clustering gravel with my feet, transfixed by how badly I needed to hear her voice. She maneuvered her way around me, blocking my path.</p><p>“I’m sorry...” I snuffled. “Elle, I’m so-”</p><p>Suddenly, her hands jammed into the fabric of my jacket and she yanked me towards her, capturing me in a tight hug. I wrapped my arms around her and winced, doing my best to hold tears.</p><p>“It’s not your fault,” she comforted.</p><p>“But I...”</p><p>“It’s not.” Elle affirmed, brushing the back of my head.</p><p>I hugged her tighter, picking up the smell of her favorite strawberry shampoo. The wind was blowing in my face, but I still felt warm.</p><p>“Thank you...” I whispered.</p><p>“If you need to talk about it, I’m here for you,” she replied. “Always.”</p><p>The red light of an ambulance was blinding us, but we didn’t break the hug for a while. I needed it. A weak smile slowly appeared on my face as the tension dissipated. Eventually, we heard paramedics rolling Angela on a gurney towards the vehicle. She was fully awake and responsive, had a better pinkish color to her face.</p><p>“Thank you, Dylan,” she said, as they passed me and Elle on the way.</p><p>I smiled and winked at her.</p><p>“What happened to her?” Elle asked, as they rolled her in though the open doors.</p><p>“I think she forgot to cut her insulin dose. They usually do it before exercise, otherwise glucose can drop too fast. Or they just eat more carbs.”</p><p>“But she wasn’t exercising,” Elle argued.</p><p>“She was dancing, that’ll do it.”</p><p>“How did you know it?” she asked.</p><p>“I read about it.”</p><p>“No, I mean that she was a diabetic?”</p><p>“They often inject in the belly,” I explained.</p><p>Elle threw her arm around my shoulder and pulled me in.</p><p>“My little genius,” she murmured. “Just like mama taught you.”</p><p>“You’re not my mama.”</p><p>“Of course I am.”</p><p>I stretched out and yawned, feeling crushing fatigue taking its grip on me. I was happy to declare that a medical emergency was enough to kill this terrible party and was willing to announce its time of death, as a bunch of teens spilled out of Wu’s residence in buckets. After ambulance drove off, Elle called Peter to urge our boys to leave with us, but she couldn’t reach him. We figured that they must’ve been on their way out with the rest of the crowd, but surprisingly, after the current of the outpouring bodies dwindled, they were nowhere to be found. As we slowly strolled back towards the entrance, Jason Wu ran out the doors and sprinted down the stairs on the porch. He looked distraught.</p><p>“Dylan!” he blurted.</p><p>I immediately tensed up.</p><p>“That guy that you came with...” he gasped, trying to catch his breath.</p><p>“Jake?” I asked anxiously, “What happened?”</p><p>“Yeah... Yeah, him. I think he and Liam are about to fight.”</p><p>Elle’s phone rang, she picked up and I heard Pete’s voice shouting through the mic, “Get up here, <em>now!</em>”</p>
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